Voucher programs diverts desperately needed resources away from the public school system to fund the education of
the few voucher students.
It also might suggest that the benefits of school choice are limited to students attending a small subset of schools that admit
few voucher students.
This means that simply comparing student achievement at schools serving more and
fewer voucher students is apt to be misleading.
Not exact matches
More than 700,000
students in more than 1,200 New York City schools — including large high schools in all five boroughs — would face higher class sizes, have
fewer teachers and lose after - school academic and enrichment programs if President - elect Trump makes good on a campaign promise to pull billions of federal dollars away from public schools to pay for private
vouchers, a UFT analysis has found.
Few topics stir up as much debate in the education sphere as steering public money in the form of
vouchers to pay for
students to attend private school.
In Bush v. Holmes (2006), the state supreme court struck down Florida's Opportunity Scholarship Program, a small
voucher program serving
fewer than 800
students, on the grounds that it fell afoul of the state constitution's «uniformity» clause, which allegedly prevents the state from funding any program outside of or «parallel» to the public school system.
Most charter schools serve mainly elementary
students, and young children make up the largest share of the
few voucher programs that have been attempted.
Few jurisdictions have passed significant
voucher and tax - credit legislation, and most have hedged charter laws with one or another of a multiplicity of provisos — that charters are limited in number, can only be authorized by school districts (their natural enemies), can not enroll more than a fixed number of
students, get less money per pupil than district - run schools, and so on.
A recent Wall Street Journal analysis of the Milwaukee
voucher program concludes that the share of
voucher students in a private school is the key to success — that private schools with
few students using
vouchers do well, while schools with many
students using
vouchers do poorly.
After President Obama told an interviewer that school
vouchers have produced
few benefits for
students, ChoiceMedia posted responses from researchers who dispute Obama's assertion, including Paul E. Peterson of Harvard University, Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas, and Greg Forster of the Friedman Foundation.
Yet given the political maelstroms of
vouchers — not to mention the research scrutiny — it comes as a surprise that
few analysts or advocates have asked about the private schools that accept scholarship
students.
Our estimates of the effects of
voucher use after three and four years are based on a relatively small number of
students:
fewer than 200 in year four, as compared to roughly 3,000 in year one and 1,700 in year two.
Meanwhile, also on Monday, studies of two existing
voucher programs in Louisiana and Indiana were released showing that after an initial backslide,
students receiving
vouchers make up ground and perform roughly as well as their public school peers after a
few years.
«The DCSD
voucher program took taxpayer funds, intended for public education, and used that money to pay for private school education for a
few select
students.
Fewer than one percent of
voucher students now come from failing public schools, and more than half never attended public school at all.
He notes that, although
few studies have examined the impact of choice on public school
students, most every finding to date suggests that
vouchers, rather than adversely affecting
students who are «left behind» in public schools, actually lead to gains for public and private school
students.
He also noted that spending money on failed schools hasn't been limited to
voucher schools: Last year, for example, taxpayers spent about $ 361 million operating 52 low - performing public schools in Milwaukee in which 10 percent or
fewer of the
students were considered proficient on state tests.
Less than one - third of programs — which represented
fewer than a quarter of all
students participating in
voucher and ESA programs in school year 2016 - 17 — require participating schools to provide annual audits to demonstrate they appropriately accounted for the receipt of state funds.
If state policymakers expand
voucher programs, this could increase the tax burden of citizens, especially those living in rural communities and small school districts with
fewer students.
The state places
few requirements on private
voucher schools to account for how the taxpayer dollars are used to educate
students, demonstrate achievement of the
students who receive the aid or any transparency to assure the funds are used as intended.
Students who receive three or more hours of special education services per day get vouchers worth 2.5 times the weighted pupil unit, whereas students receiving fewer than three hours per day get vouchers worth 1.5 times the weighted pup
Students who receive three or more hours of special education services per day get
vouchers worth 2.5 times the weighted pupil unit, whereas
students receiving fewer than three hours per day get vouchers worth 1.5 times the weighted pup
students receiving
fewer than three hours per day get
vouchers worth 1.5 times the weighted pupil unit.
Tuchtenhagen acknowledges that when
students use
vouchers to move to private schools, it means public schools are educating
fewer kids.
When Coulson visits Chile in Forces and Choices to argue for a US
voucher program similar to the one put in place by Pinochet in the 1980s, he dismisses opposition as a
few disgruntled
students.
Data show that privately run charter and
voucher schools serve significantly
fewer students with special needs, English language learners and more difficult to educate
students.
Reports circulated yesterday that President Obama had reached an agreement with House speaker John Boehner (R - OH) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I - CT) to not only sustain the DC school
voucher program for another
few years but to eliminate the legislative cap on
student enrollment — theoretically allowing it to grow without limit.
Mischaracterizes the findings of the study: According to MPS, «The authors admit that they can not conclude that the
voucher program affected criminality...» While MPS would be correct if they only examine
students who attend private schools with a
voucher for a
few years, the key findings of DeAngelis and Wolf are among
students who attended MPCP schools for a full 12 years.
The
voucher dollars received by the Catholic elementary school of
fewer than 600
students jumped from $ 660,000 the year before Runyon's speech, to over $ 937,000 the year that the restructured tuition went into place.
And across Louisiana, many of the most popular private schools for
voucher students posted miserable scores in math, reading, science and social studies this spring, with
fewer than half their
voucher students achieving even basic proficiency and
fewer than 2 percent demonstrating mastery.
Like traditional
vouchers, ESAs remove public funds from the public system, resulting in
fewer resources for the 5 million +
students who are still educated by public schools.
ESAs, tax credit scholarships, and other school
vouchers divert scarce resources from public schools that serve all
students to pay for private schools for a
few.
Vouchers don't provide an actual choice for
students living in rural areas who have
few, if any, access points to schools other than their local public schools.
Notably, the study also found variation in
voucher impacts depending on the sample of
students investigated and how long those
students stayed in the program — those who stayed longer experienced
fewer negative impacts than those who only stayed for two years.
Vouchers undermine this vital function, however, by diverting desperately needed public resources away from the public school system to fund the education of a
few students at private schools — without offering any actual reforms.
In Louisiana, private schools with
fewer than 40
voucher students don't have to show basic competency among
students in math, reading, social studies, and science.