Vouchers fail to boost student achievement, says government report

Church & State, Nov 2002

Students receiving privately funded vouchers to attend non-public schools do not show significant gains in academic performance, a new report from the federal government indicates.

The General Accounting Office examined privately funded voucher programs in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Dayton, Ohio. In Washington it found that voucher students initially did better in math but worse in reading than their public school counterparts. After three years, both groups were performing at the same rate.

The Dayton voucher students did slightly better in reading, but researchers said the gain was not statistically significant. In New York, black voucher students did slightly better in reading and math than public school students, but Latino voucher students performed at the same rate as those in public schools.

Voucher boosters have claimed for years that allowing students to attend religious and other private schools at taxpayer expense will boost the test scores of low-income students. To date, no objective study has bolstered that claim.

Faced with the academic failure of vouchers, supporters are now claiming that parents of voucher students simply like private schools better. They assert that this increased parental satisfaction will somehow translate into academic success.

Voucher critics are skeptical. They counter that while parental satisfaction is important, it's no substitute for solid academic gains. Colleges, they say, are not likely to take parental satisfaction into account when considering applications from voucher students with low test scores and poor academic performance.