Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Jeff Reed
Johnson County Sun
If Chuck Kurtz wants to improve Kansas public education - as he expressed in his June 7 column "Expect voucher debate in 2012" - he should welcome vouchers with open arms.
As discovered by researchers at Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Princeton and other respected institutions, vouchers help not only students using them but also public schools affected by them.
Nine of the 10 "gold standard" studies examining voucher programs concluded that some or all participants benefited academically. One found no difference. As for public schools, 18 of 19 empirical studies showed vouchers impacted them positively, with one reporting no effect. No empirical analysis has discovered negative effects from vouchers.
Because parents want educational options, today 14 states and Washington, D.C., offer vouchers to some 200,000 mostly "disadvantaged" students.
Just in the past two years, Oklahoma created vouchers for special-needs and lower-income children. In Ohio, parental demand is exceeding the legislatively imposed "cap" on the number of available vouchers.
And, in Kansas, 57 percent of polled voters support vouchers, according to a survey my foundation released.
Twenty years of evidence proves vouchers don't destroy public education. Rather, it is their absence that destroys desperate parents' hopes to give their children a more effective education.
Jeff W. Reed
Foundation for Educational Choice
Indianapolis, Ind.
