This is explicitly stated over and over in the study’s text. The study says no conclusions should be drawn about the effectiveness of the program.

Meanwhile, in this post Jay has linked to a summary of all the studies that do provide information on the effectiveness of voucher programs. Guess what they find?

http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr306.pdf

Parry

Recall the original title of the Brookings study by Chubb and Moe: “What Price Democracy? Politics, Markets, & America’s Schools”. They argued that “democratic” regulation is a cause of poor school performance. Given government control of an industry, democratic control is better than undemocratic control. But why suppose that government control of any sort, in any industry, will outperform an unsubsidized, unregulated market? Do we conduct nation-wide referenda to determine the next week’s lunch menu? Imagine the glorious battles we could have over religious dietary taboos. How many times must I chew my next bite of apple? Do we vote on this? Democracy is hardly an unalloyed good.

Milton Friedman expressed a preference for vouchers over charter schools. He argued that the shorter leash on which charter schools operate would invite political intrusion. This was prescient. Consider KIPP. Perhaps “the public” can intrude on any system, but with vouchers or non-voucher private schools, the unions and their bought politicians must do so in broad daylight.

Long ago, I stopped reading Mr. Rotherham largely because I thought Mr. Rotherham had a bad case of Mr. Rotherham. Perhaps somewhere in all of his voluminous self-important writings, there actually was a kernel or two of wisdom. Who knows? One had to plow through 300-400 words when only less than 50 were needed. I think Mr. Rotherham suffers from a bad case of opinion-bloat.

I also think most of what Mr. Rotherham writes could be subtitled “Look at how smart I am.” His ego needs to be packed in ice to reduce further inflammation.

Even if you disagree with me, and you truly believe Mr. Rotherham is indeed all the wonderful things you say..why are you sucking up to him publicly?

There have been some “inside the black box” studies. See for example http://www.caldercenter.org/PDF/1001116_Florida_Heat.pdf for ana analysis of what Florida public schools did to improve in response to pressure from the state’s accountability/voucher program.

In your own research (or in the research of others on voucher programs), is there any analysis as to why voucher programs appear to lead to positive results? Outside of big-picture, broad-label answers such as “choice” or “competition”, are there any substantive analyses of differences in children’s educational experiences in the two settings (traditional public schools and voucher-funded destination private or charter schools) that might suggest causal mechanisms?

Thanks!

Parry