Vouchers don’t help poor kids-they hurt them, in Louisiana and everywhere else. As Diane Ravitch explains, “Remember the claim that vouchers would ‘save poor kids from failing public schools’? As we see in state after state, it’s not true. Josh Cowen wrote in his new book The Privateers that voucher researchers have known for years that vouchers don’t help poor kids; in reality, vouchers actually hurt poor kids. The poor kids don’t go to elite private schools; they mostly go to religious schools with uncertified teachers. The greatest benefit of vouchers goes to wealthy kids, who use the money to subsidize their private school tuition. In every state with universal vouchers, the majority are used by students who are already attending private schools.
Here’s the latest from Louisiana.
“But more than a decade since the statewide voucher program began, after Louisiana has spent half a billion taxpayer dollars to send thousands of students to private schools, data show the state’s lofty promise has not panned out.
“On average, voucher students at private schools fare worse on state tests than their public-school peers, according to scores examined by The Times-Picayune and The Advocate. In 2023, just 14% of voucher students in grades 3-8 met state achievement targets, compared with 24% of low-income students at public schools…
“When researchers analyzed the results after one year, what they found was stunning: Participating in the program caused students’ English and math scores to plummet.
“’We’re talking about some of the worst results we’ve ever seen in the history of education research,’ said Josh Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University who opposes vouchers.
“The low scores persisted for several years, especially in math. It was a far cry from Jindal’s assertion that vouchers would give students access to an excellent education. (Jindal did not respond to a request for comment.)”