The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today praising the voucher meta-analysis you read about on JPGB by Patrick J. Wolf, M. Danish Shakeel, and Kaitlin Anderson.
Here’s a highlight:
Today 26 states and the District of Columbia have some private school choice program, and the trend is for more: Half of the programs have been established in the past five years. That hasn’t stopped opponents from arguing there’s no proof vouchers help students learn. But a new study from the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas shows otherwise.
The study’s most important news is that voucher students show “statistically significant” improvement in math and reading test scores. The researchers found that vouchers on average increase the reading scores of students who get them by about 0.27 standard deviations and their math scores by about 0.15 standard deviations. In laymen’s terms, this means that on average voucher students enjoy the equivalent of several months of additional learning compared to non-voucher students.
Unless I have missed it, the Wisconsin media never have reported on Greg Forster’s Win Win studies nor have they reported on Pat Wolf’s new analysis. This is the state where the modern choice movement originated. Yet evidence on the policy’s effect is basically censored there.
On the infrequent occasion when an individual study with positive findings is reported in Wisconsin, reporters will seek instant analysis from individuals whose academic credentials render them unqualified.