The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling to uphold the Cleveland school voucher program encourages other states to pursue this unwise, unsuccessful and unpopular policy. Diverting public tax dollars to private and religious schools not only drains money from public schools, but it undermines real reforms such as reducing class sizes.
So far, the voucher program has drained $43 million of public tax funds.
And what have we gotten for our money? Ohio’s most recent state-sanctioned evaluation of the Cleveland program compared the progress of public school students and voucher students during a two-year period.
Over this period, public school students had learning gains that were greater than those achieved by voucher students in language, math and reading.
Pro-voucher legislators have claimed that they want to help disadvantaged children, but a closer look at the voucher program shows the opposite is happening. Many of the voucher schools are not willing or able to serve students with physical and learning disabilities. Public schools serve all children, but private schools play by a different set of rules.
This may explain why voters have defeated voucher initiatives every single time they’ve been placed on a state election ballot. Just because the Supreme Court says we can have vouchers doesn’t mean we should.
Everett
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