School Vouchers

Education Tax Credits Are Growing Faster Than Vouchers

"...scholarship donation and personal use credits are benefitting more than 5 times as many students as vouchers, though the benefit is generally smaller. Credit programs are growing faster than vouchers, on average, and seem to enjoy more bi-partisan support — certainly when it comes to programs not limited to special-needs students."

- Andrew J. Coulson

Michelle Rhee Opposes School Vouchers

"From our vantage point, I think that we are on the same page with the administration in believing that vouchers are not the answer. That reform is not going to be the impetus or the wedge that is really going to turn this district around."

- Michelle Rhee

Opposing Vouchers Harms The Charter School Movement

"...appeasement on vouchers only whets unions appetites for eliminating all meaningful types of choice. With voucher programs facing termination in Washington, D.C., and heavy regulation in Milwaukee, the teachers unions have now set their sights on charter schools."

"Vouchers made the world safe for charters by drawing union fire. But now that the unions have the voucher threat under control, charters are in trouble."

- Jay P. Greene

School Vouchers Increase Graduation Rates

"A recent evaluation of the Milwaukee choice program found that its high school graduation rate was 85%, compared to 58% for students in the city's public schools."

- Wall Street Journal

67% Of Public Schools In America's Capital Are Failing

"In Washington, D.C., alone, 173 schools — 67% — fail to meet federal standards of learning."

- USA Today

Your Tax Dollars Are Already Spent On Religious Private Schools

"In addition to the billions of dollars spent annually on private school tuitions for students with disabilities, he noted, private schools get public money for books, technology, teacher training and Title I services."

- Washington Post

Vouchers Improve Public Schools

"A total of 17 empirical studies have examined how vouchers affect academic achievement in public schools. Of these studies, 16 find that vouchers improved public schools and one finds no visible impact. No empirical studies find that vouchers harm public schools."

- Friedman Foundation

Republican Senators Who Voted To End DC Vouchers

Crapo (R-ID)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)

- United States Senate

Washington DC Public School Spending

$26,555 per student per year
- Cato Institute

Newspapers Support Vouchers

"We need more information about the effects of school vouchers. Should Democrats in Congress have their way, we won't get it."
- Chicago Tribune

"House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) was right to call out the Democrats for this back-door attempt to kill the voucher program."
- Washington Post

President Obama Is Going To Kick His Children's Classmates Out Of School

"We would like Mr. Obey and his colleagues to talk about possible "disruption" with Deborah Parker, mother of two children who attend Sidwell Friends School because of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. "The mere thought of returning to public school frightens me," Ms. Parker told us..."

- Washington Post Editorial

Michelle Rhee Supports Vouchers For Students Attending Failing Schools

“I don’t think vouchers are going to solve all the ills of public education, but parents who are zoned to schools that are failing kids should have options to do better by their kids.”

- Michelle Rhee, chancellor of Washington D.C. public schools

Vouchers Do Not Harm Public Schools

- Greg Forster

171,332 Students

"Student enrollment in school choice programs grew 8 percent—to a projected 171,332 students—over the 2007-08 school year and has grown 89 percent since the 2003-04 school year."

- Alliance For School Choice

Stimulus Bill Prohibits School Choice

"No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools."

- page 257 of the 2009 economic stimulus bill

Private Schools Cost Less Than Public Schools

"According to U.S. Department of Education data from 2003–04, the most recent period for which figures are available, the average private-school student paid $6,600 in tuition; 85 percent of them paid less than $10,000. In contrast, the average per-pupil expenditure for public schools in the U. S. in that same year was $10,561."

- Marcus A. Winters

Cecilia Rouse Is Anti-School Vouchers

Barack Obama has appointed an anti-school voucher economist to the Council of Economic Advisers. Here is a summary of a 2008 study of school vouchers done by Dr. Rouse:

"The best research to date finds relatively small achievement gains for students offered education vouchers, most of which are not statistically different from zero."
- Cecilia Elena Rouse and Lisa Barrow, August 2008

This is in direct contrast to the 9 out of 10 random assignment studies that show "significant positive effects" from school vouchers. One of these random assignment studies was done by the same Cecilia Rouse in 1997: "I find that the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program appears to have had a positive effect on the math achievement of those who attended a private school; but had no benefits for reading scores."

Question: Do vouchers have a "positive effect" as in the 1997 Rouse study or do vouchers produce gains "not statistically different from zero" as in the 2008 Rouse study?

Barack Obama Is Anti-Science

Barack Obama Says Being Anti-Science Is Bad:
"I'll change the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology."
- Barack Obama

The Science:
"There have been 10 random assignment evaluations (the gold-standard in research) of voucher programs and 9 show significant positive effects."
- Jay P. Greene

Barack Obama's Position On The Science:
"What I do oppose is using public money for private school vouchers."
- Barack Obama

Why Barack Obama Is Anti-Science:
"The biggest teachers' union, the National Education Association (NEA), has 3.2 million members and committed $50 million to Obama's campaign."
- Time Magazine

School Vouchers Growing

Obama Could Force His Children's Classmates Back To Public School

"Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said this week that she is working on a plan to phase out the controversial D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program."
- Washington Post

"What i do oppose is using public money for private school vouchers."
- Barack Obama

"To their credit, the schools Michelle Obama visited this week -- Georgetown Day and Sidwell Friends -- participate in the voucher program, as do many other area private schools. That means classmates of Malia and Sasha might lose the ability to attend their chosen school if the vouchers were eliminated."
- Washington Post

"Five of the students using the vouchers attend Sidwell Friends School."
- Washington Times

Milwaukee Vouchers Growing 23 Percent Per Year

- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

School Voucher Studies

"Research has consistently shown that vouchers improve public schools. No study has ever found that vouchers made public schools worse."

- Friedman Foundation

Most Economists Support School Vouchers

"67.1 percent agree that "parents should be given educational vouchers which can be used at government-run or privately-run schools.""

- survey of Ph.D. members of the American Economic Association

Michelle Rhee Does Not Oppose School Vouchers

"I would never, as long as I am in this role, do anything to limit another parent's ability to make a choice for their child. Ever."

- Michelle Rhee

Voucher Studies

Jay P. Greene has compiled a list of the 10 random assignment experiments that study school vouchers. 9 of the 10 studies show significant, positive effects for school voucher participants.

School Vouchers Work

"There have been 10 random assignment evaluations (the gold-standard in research) of voucher programs and 9 show significant positive effects."

- Jay P. Greene

The Largest School Voucher Program

McKay Scholarship Program:

"Students eligible for vouchers who remained in the public schools made greater academic improvements as their school choices increased."

- Manhattan Institute

Milwaukee School Choice Far From Ideal

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program "forbids parents from supplementing vouchers with their own funds, is open only to low-income children, and requires participating schools to admit all choice students for whom they have seats."

- Cato Institute

43% Of Democratic Senators Support Private School Choice

According to the Heritage Foundation, "37 percent of Representatives and 45 percent of Senators in the 110th Congress sent their children to private schools—almost four times the rate of the general population."

"If all of the Members who exercised school choice for their own children had supported school choice in policy, every major legislative effort in recent years to give parents school choice would have passed."