Negative DC Voucher Results Still Don ’t Mean Choice Has Failed

It ’s not a good thing when a random-assignment study—the research “gold standard” because it controls even for unobservable variables like motivation—finds that using a voucher tends to result in lower standardized test scores. All things equal, we’d like scores to go up. But in thesecond of the latest evaluations of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, we saw almost exactly the same results as last year: using a voucher resulted in lower math scores that were statistically significant, and reading scores that were lower, but that could have been due to chance.Last year I wrote about several reasons the first evaluation in no way condemned school choice, and you canread that here. To quickly reiterate, given both DC ’s close proximity to other school systems, and the abundant forms of choice within its borders—a huge charter sector and lots of choice among traditional public schools—the voucher program is but a choice minnow in a lake full of largemouth bass. The breakdown of where students in the control group—families who applied for a voucher and did not get one—ended up going to school starkly reveals this. Even without knowing how many went to chosen traditional public schools, we know a majority still attended schools of choice; 43 percent attended charters and 10 percent private schools.It is also crucial to note that the voucher program has been repeatedlythreatened and stifled politically so it has never had real stability, and it is funded ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs