CABINET/EDUCATION/TRUMP PEOPLE/BETSY DEVOS: “Students who received publicly funded vouchers in Indiana and Louisiana appeared to lose significant academic ground in the first two years after switching to private schools but then caught up to their public-school counterparts in subsequent years, according to two studies made public Monday [6-26-17].
The studies do not show that vouchers led to significantly stronger math and reading performance overall, even as President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos promise to pour billions of dollars into expanding vouchers nationwide.
Vouchers are direct government payments that families use as scholarships to attend private schools, and they are bitterly contested.
Both sides could claim a measure of validation from the new research: advocates of school choice who say it isn’t fair to judge voucher programs based on test results from a student’s first year in private school, and critics who say vouchers drain funding from public schools without improving achievement.”
-Emma Brown, “School voucher recipients lose ground at first, then catch up to peers, studies find,” The Washington Post online, June 26, 2017 05:06pm