“The Case for Voucher Expansion” is Weak

Post-Crescent Article Lays Out the Case

Jim Bender’s article entitled “The Case for Voucher Expansion” that appeared in the Post-Crescent on May 23, 2013 lays out the case for public funding private school vouchers, and it is a very weak case. Mr. Bender makes two important points. The first is that “data shows that students in parental choice programs graduate at higher rates than their public school counterparts and are more likely to enroll in college.”  Unfortunately, things are not so clear. The findings to which Mr. Bender refers come from a 5-year, longitudinal study of comparing a sample of students in Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program (MPCP) voucher program with a matched sample of students in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).  For detailed reviews of the reports of the study’s findings, visit the website of the National Education Policy Center.

The Finding is Based on Fewer Than Half of the Students in the Sample

The study was based on carefully drawn matched samples that were chosen at the beginning of the 5-year period, but of course, the students in the samples did not always stay put for 5 years. In fact, 56% of the students in the MPCP sample left the program before the end of the period. The finding that the MPCP students were more likely to graduate and enroll in college than their MPS counterparts was based only on those who remained in the sample at the end of the five years.  No results were reported for the large number who left the program. So, we do not know what happened to them. Did they graduate?  Did they go to college? Did they move to other cities? We don’t know.

The Differences Were Too Weak to Be a Basis for Policy Decisions

In addition, the differences between MPCP students and MPS students were found to be statistically significant only by using an unusually loose definition of statistical significance.  The differences between MPCP students and MPS students were so small that they were significant only at the level of p = .10 instead of the more usual p = .05.  This is important because the study used a very large sample size (more than 800), and with large samples sizes, statistical significance is easy to obtain.  In short, what we have here is a very weak finding of a very small difference, and no conclusions about the general value of voucher programs can be drawn from it.

Parental Choice is Not the Issue

Mr. Bender’s other important point is that parents ought to be able to choose where to send their children to school.  No one can quarrel with this sentiment, but parental choice is not the issue. Public funding is the issue.  No one denies the right of a parent to send his or her children to private schools. The question is: who should pay the tuition?

Private schools have always played an important role in our educational system.  In our own Fox Cities, generations of immigrant parents struggled and sacrificed to send their children to Catholic or to Lutheran schools.  The schools had and continue to have scholarship programs to help families that cannot afford their tuition.  Because of these scholarships, parents already have the choice to send their children to private schools.  Public funding will not change that, but it will drain scarce dollars from our public schools. 

We Have Great Public Schools.  We Should Not Weaken Them

Wisconsin has some of our country’s very best public schools.  We have them in part because we have consistently supported them. We have not diverted desperately needed dollars to the support of private schools instead, and we should not do so now.  People come to live here because of the quality of our schools.  Businesses locate here because of the quality of our schools.  They are our very best investment.  Why would we want to weaken them by diverting funds to private school vouchers?  Mr. Bender would like us to think that Milwaukee’s experience with vouchers offers proof that they make a big difference in students’ lives, but his evidence is very weak. We should not abandon something that has worked well for us for many on the basis of such weak evidence.