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The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has provided school vouchers to more than 15,000 students and helped them attain better academic outcomes since 2004. The President wants to cut funding for the program despite his own administration’s evaluation of it, which the Department of Education gave its highest rating for scientific rigor. Here are key findings […]
This week the Mississippi Press posted a story entitled “Parents push for Mississippi special education vouchers.” The article, which is actually about an education savings account (ESA) bill, is straightforward, but be warned: Two commentators in the story’s sound-off section hit hard. The fact of the matter is government has agreed to adequately fund children […]
An ACLU blog post this month questioning the intentions of School Choice Week and the policy impact of “vouchers” was disappointing, particularly in its framing of school vouchers and voucher advocates as one-trick policy ponies. More important, however, it just shows the fundamental misunderstanding of “choice” in American education. Which is to say, there’s a […]
In light of the great strides two education savings accounts (ESA) bills made just yesterday, today’s Friday Freakout comes to you from Mississippi. In a local news story about Mississippi’s ESA bills, the Executive Director of the Mississippi Association of School Superintendents was quoted saying this. “I think special needs kids are being provided for,” […]
The holy grail of research is the causal claim. That is, if you can prove that A causes B, not that A is related to B or that A is similar to B, you can cure diseases, create rockets that leave our atmosphere, and design social programs that help people live better lives. In medicine, […]
The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) reported that 39.3 percent of voucher recipients (7,779 students) were never previously enrolled in public schools in Indiana, implying that these vouchers are an additional fiscal cost to the state because, as many are interpreting it, “those kids would have paid their way to a private school with or without […]
You might have seen Slate’s article and map showing all of the schools in America that teach creationism and receive public funds in some capacity. As one might expect, it stirred up a classic debate that truly does get vicious, but what we found most interesting was this anti-creationist’s post in the comments. In reality, […]
At the International School Choice Research and Reform Academic Conference this month, researchers, practitioners, and advocates convened to compare and contrast the state of school choice in the U.S. and across many European and South American countries. One thing was clear — the conversation around school choice has shifted to implementation. Private school choice programs […]
(Posted in response to a guest post by Anna J. Egalite entitled “How to Maximize Private School Supply in Choice Programs.”) Among America’s private school choice programs, the Louisiana Scholarship Program has some of, if not the, most restrictive application processes for voucher students and voucher-accepting private schools. Its administrators determine 1) which private schools can […]
Centralization in public schools through school district consolidation was pitched as a way to save administrative costs in American public schools. Instead, public school administration has mirrored the trend of virtually every other government input: growth. Such centralization has contributed to a decrease in the ability of parents to “vote with their feet” for better […]