Josh Cowen, professor of education policy at Michigan State University, summarizes the latest research on vouchers for the Brown Center Chalkboard, a publication of the Brookings Institution.
He finds several salient points:
- In 2023 alone, seven states passed new school voucher programs and nine expanded existing plans—highlighting a push that is largely coming from red states.
- The last decade of achievement studies have shown negative voucher impacts, with more mixed or inconclusive results on attainment.
- Data from traditional voucher programs has indicated that the larger the program, the worse the results tend to be.
- Most students who use vouchers never attended public schools.
- Many private schools raise their tuition to take advantage of voucher funding.
- Many pop-up schools of dubious quality are created to receive voucher money.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
In the 90s, 91 to 94, Louisiana created a Voucher System using Medicaid Funds. It was a program to serve youth with emotional disabilities. The private psychiatric hospital where I’d worked as a clinical education director/teacher/administrator participated. There were hundreds of “pop-up” programs throughout the state. There was an incentive for families to participate because the attached funding was distributed directly to families with children who qualified. The Federal Government investigated and brought a lawsuit against Louisiana to recover funding for the illegitimate use of the program. The Republican-led debacle, effectively a Voucher Program, was swept under the rug but nearly bankrupted Louisiana.
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It’s going to be Darwin Award time for the states that went all in for vouchers. What a mess they will have created for themselves, and people will not be happy. Republicans are going to lose a lot of elections because of the party’s reactions to the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, and they are going to lose a lot of elections because of this issue.
Private schools-
Pro Publica published the story of a private Seattle special education school accused of harming kids (isolating students in locked rooms). The school has been barred from accepting new students. The school only accepts publicly-funded enrollees. The article contrasts the number of last resort disciplinary actions used on students in the accused school vs. special ed public schools in the state.
In Wash., non-public agencies received more than $50,000,000 in public funding (2021-2022) for roughly 500 students.
The owner of the school, Fairfax Behavioral Health, is owned by Universal Health Services. The Wikipedia entry describes the Fortune 500’s history. Universal owns roughly 300 hospitals and centers across the nation.
Thank men like Bill Gates for privatization at the expense of taxpayers and for the detrimental consequences of making something that should not be profit-taking, into a situation like the special ed school in Tacoma.
There’s a UHS subsidiary in the U.K.