The advocacy group called Public Funds a Public Schools gathered a useful archive of research studies of vouchers.
The studies were conducted by nonpartisan academic and federal researchers.
The findings are broadly congruent.
Voucher schools are academically inferior to public schools.
Voucher schools divert funding from public schools, which enroll most children.
Voucher programs lack accountability.
The absence of oversight promotes fraud and corruption.
Voucher programs do not help students with disabilities.
Voucher schools are allowed to discriminate against certain groups of students and families.
Voucher programs exacerbate segregation.
Voucher programs don’t work, don’t improve education, and have multiple negative effects.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Please keep telling it like it is, even though many people aren’t reading this who should, and many who do read it dismiss it for political reasons.
and it is the “dismiss” part which hurts over and over
This is an easy to use guide to the research on vouchers. We should send a copy to all our politicians including Crulella DeVos. There is no educational value in sending public money to schools of questionable value. The assumption of value is all ideological, not evidence based.
DeVos promotes the lie that vouchers give poor kids “the same choice” as rich kids. It’s a lie. A voucher worth $4,200 or $6,000 or $8,000 will not pay the tuition at a private school like Lakeside Academy in Seattle, where Bill Gates sent his children or Exeter or Philips Andover.
Vouchers (and charters) are part of the systemic racism destroying our country.
They promotes segregation? We hear at Bob’s Real Good Flor-uh-duh School objects right strong to that. Theys plenty of voucher schools in Flor-uh-duah thats open to eny white, Christian child regardless. No discriminashun. Me and Darlene started one of em ourselfs. So I no. We got curriculems like you woodn’t beleeve an you kin use yore Flor-uh-duh Academic Scholurship to pay for it, so its free and keeps tax dollurs from going to gobermint schools whar they teaches childern to be transgendered. An sense we went virtuul, none of are students kin git the car owner virus cause we aint got no cars cept the one Darlene’s brother keeps up on blocks in the side yard.
The car owner virus!? You mean if I get rid of the car, I won’t get sick and die?
Sorry, Bob. That line really got me. chuckle.
I keep heerin about this car owner virus, but my understandin is if you jist inject yorself with bleech or takes hydroxyharlequin yule be jist fine.
No doubt, vouchers are a thorn in the side of public schools.
In the “pick and choose your battles wisely” realm, what is the greatest thorn
in the sides of the students?
The testing complex wastes funding.
Testing programs lack accountability.
Testing programs do not help students with disabilities.
Testing discriminates against certain groups of students and families.
Testing programs exacerbate segregation.
Testing programs don’t work, don’t improve education, and have multiple negative effects.
Untill the testing malpractice ends, do public schools have room to “talk”?
No Brick. Testing is required of public schools that receive federal funds from ESSA. Public schools do not talk. Congress should be your target, for starters. They try for the charter industry because they love to teach to the tests. Teachers in public schools are usually the most persistent and well-informed opponents of tests. So is the scholar who owns this blog.
Thank you NoBrick for reiterating the absurdity and MALPRACTICE that the standards and testing regime. It is THE dominant malpractice of this century. All students have been harmed by this malpractice.
And quite frankly, I don’t give a damn that it is mandated by anyone through bribery and coercion as Laura C. describes. That is no excuse for participating in the UNJUST AND UNETHICAL MALPRACTICE THAT IS THE STANDARDS AND TESTING REGIME.
I’ve posted this before in response to those GAGA GOOD GERMAN types of teachers who willfully or not go along with damaging, hurting all the students so as to preserve their job:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Comte-Sponville in “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” [my additions]
“Voucher schools are academically inferior to public schools.”
That doesn’t matter anymore though. The one and only measure for private schools is “choice”.
See how they did that? 🙂
Ed reformers inevitably end up at 100% vouchers. They can’t end up anywhere else. You wonder when the liberal ed reformers will figure it out. They’re most of the way there already. The end result of this will be low value vouchers for all and a much diminished public system for low income children- middle income children too, but mostly low income children.
When ed reformers floated the universal voucher system in Michigan the voucher value was 5k. They would have cut public funding for education by 75%. A k-12 loan industry will appear because 5k isn’t enough so middle class parents will borrow and it will be MORE inequitable. That’s what they want to take from you- your existing public system- and this much-diminished subsidy will be all they offer to replace it.
Teacher wages will tank too. Don’t forget that. The only thing holding up private school teacher wages is public school (union) wages. They’ll drop thru the floor.