The tax credit scholarship program, which may be greatly expanded if HB 2457 passes, is basically a voucher program. We oppose it because there are no accountability provisions in the bill, and evidence indicates vouchers and tax credit scholarships do not help students and may harm them and harm the public schools by funneling funding away from them.

“Now, a slew of new studies and reviews — including some conducted by the same voucher advocates that had previously found vouchers ‘do no harm’ — is telling quite a different story. New reviews of existing voucher studies are pointing out that, overall, the impact on the test scores for students using vouchers are sporadic, inconsistent, and generally have ‘an effect on achievement that is statistically indistinguishable from zero.’

“But some new studies on vouchers in Louisiana raise substantial concerns, finding that students using vouchers were significantly injured by using vouchers to attend private schools.”

Christopher Lubienski: New Studies of Vouchers Show Harm to Students