When Donald Trump named Betsy DeVos the new head of the Department of Education, anybody with half a brain cell who knows even a touch about public education in this country collectively said “c’mon man!” That’s because the Betsy DeVos is a lifelong education-for-profit advocate who believes in privatizing public education. There are numerous issues with the privatization of public education, but here is just one which will definitely be thrown out in the next few months: school vouchers. Here is a study published earlier this year by the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans.
One of the central debates about school reform is whether or not school choice improves student outcomes. School choice reforms, which comprise a broad category of policies aimed at improving public education through the introduction of market forces that may stimulate customer choice and competition between schools, have grown particularly popular since the 1990s. Private school vouchers, which provide public funds for students to attend K-12 private schools, are one example of an education reform that introduces choice and competition. This evaluation focuses on the impacts of the voucher program known as the Louisiana Scholarship Program, addressing four research questions to determine its direct and indirect effects on Louisiana’s students.
Here are the four questions the study attempted to answer:
1. How did usage of an LSP scholarship affect student achievement?
2. How do self-reported measures of non-cognitive skills and political tolerance differ between LSP scholarship recipients and non-recipients?
3. How did transfers by LSP scholarship users affect racial integration levels at their former public schools and new private schools?
4. How did the LSP affect student achievement in public schools facing competitive pressures from the program?
Their findings can be summed up quickly here.
In general, our results present a mixed picture of the LSP’s effectiveness. We find the program had a negative impact on participating students’ academic achievement in the first two years of its operation, most clearly in math. On the other hand, the results improved between the first and second years and, through marketbased pressures, the program may have slightly increased students’ math scores in public schools, particularly those most affected by the competitive threat. Also, the LSP reduced racial segregation. Finally, we find no evidence that the LSP has impacted students’ non-academic skills, such as conscientiousness.
So, if it doesn’t help kids score better, or learn more, or interact better because of the potential for more integration, what does privatizing provide? It provides worse conditions for teachers, and more money into the pockets of people like Betsy DeVos and other one-percent-minded parasites.