EdChoice vouchers boost college-going and degrees -- but not test scores

Disadvantaged students who used Ohio's EdChoice scholarships to attend private school were much more likely to attend college and earn a degree, concludes a new Urban Institute study. Gains were strongest for males, blacks, students from the lowest-income families and below-average students.

Photo: Norma Mortonsen/Pexels

But voucher students didn't earn higher test scores. “Our findings of positive impacts on college enrollment and degree attainment indicate that state test scores might not be the best way to judge the performance of private schools, which often have different curricula from public schools and might face different incentives to concentrate on than state examinations,” the study concluded.

EdChoice didn't harm students who stayed in voucher-eligible public schools, the researchers found. They did "modestly" better in college enrollment and graduation.

The study is based on previous years when only 'low-income students from low-performing public schools" were eligible. EdChoice has more than doubled in size now that all students are eligible. A group called Vouchers Hurt Ohio has filed suit charging that "using public money to pay for private education goes against Ohio's constitution and promotes segregation."

EdChoice gives families a chance to "escape" low-performing schools,  write Keith Neely and David Hodges, attorneys at the Institute for Justice, in Real Clear Education. The scholarships "allow education providers to compete on a level playing field, which keeps everyone sharp. Vouchers Hurt Ohio and union leaders prefer brute force. No scholarships. No choice. No competition."

It's not uncommon for school choice programs to help students go farther in school without raising test scores, writes researcher Michael McShane. "It's probably the case that these schools do not teach in ways aligned with the state tests that were used to judge their performance and/or are successful in instilling non-tested skills and dispositions that make students do better later in life."

Similarly, he writes, "enrollment in gifted education doesn't raise test scores for disadvantaged boys, but has a very big effect on whether they go to college, according to a new study."

Trump's Education Department is cutting funding for two programs that try to get more disadvantaged high school students to and through college. There's lots of evidence going back for many years that TRIO and GEAR UP, are "expensive failures," write Jay P. Greene and Lindsey Burke. They don't work. But, like zombies, they never die.