Milwaukee vouchers have no affect on student achievement

by David Safier

Here's an illuminating study out of the University of Arkansas. The authors studied students in Milwaukee's 20 year old voucher program. The conclusion: Voucher students “scored at similar levels as their peers not participating in the school choice program.”

Who are the lefties behind this obviously slanted study? One is Jay Greene, a friend of G.I.'s Matthew Ladner. Ladner is a frequent contributor on Greene's blog. I believe Greene recently joined G.I. in some capacity. The other is Patrick Wolf, a voucher supporter. I guess they're not lefties at all. They sound more like righties to me.

But surely the article I read is by some left wing gloater who cherry-picked the results? In fact, no. It's by conservative educator Frederick Hess writing on the American Enterprise Institute website.

To recap: Two conservatives did research on a long standing voucher program and concluded it had no academic impact on the students. A well known conservative educator accepted their findings.

These results are typical. Vouchers have never been shown to give students a significant academic boost no matter where they've been tried. A Bush administration study concluded there is no significant difference in achievement between students in traditional public schools, charters and private schools — with one exception. Students in conservative Christian private schools scored lower than anyone else.

Hess isn't concerned by the results of the study. He says, increased achievement isn't what vouchers are all about.

Huh?

Aren't conservatives the folks who want testing, testing, testing and data, data, data? Isn't that how they think we should judge successful and failing schools?

Not according to Hess. He says, the important thing about vouchers is they increase choice and lead to innovation. Apparently, the fact that choice and innovation don't lead to increased achievement doesn't bother him much.