DC Vouchers After One Year

TheWashington Post has the story on the results of the first year review of the DC voicher program.

Students in the D.C. school voucher program, the first federal initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, generally performed no better on reading and math tests after one year in the program than their peers in public schools, the U.S. Education Department said yesterday.

The department's report, which researchers said is an early snapshot, found only a few exceptions to the conclusion that the program has not yet had a significant impact on achievement: Students who moved from higher-performing public schools to private schools and those who scored well on tests before entering the program performed better in math than their peers who stayed in public school.

Of course, voucher opponents are jumping on the report saying it is proof that vouchers dont' really do anything but waste taxpayer money. But then again, failing schools also waste taxpayer money, but nothing is ever said about that waste of funds.

The study looks only that those students in the program and those students who applied but lost out in the lottery, so the comparison is pretty solid. But the Post article says that "generally" students in the program performed no better than their peers. There are some differences, but they may not be significant in the short run.

The question for any voucher program is long-term efficacy. What will be the status of these students three, four or seven, eight years down the line? One thing for sure is that we may never know. DC is the whipping post for any political idea that comes along. Given the Democratic "support" for public education, it is entirely possible that the DC program may fall victim to electoral politics and be shut down as a failure before there is time to judge its success.

The tragic waste is that these kids who were given hope will have it taken away. And we wonder why children are so jaded.