Vouchers in D.C. Rock: New Study

by Collin Hitt Using a school voucher in D.C. significantly boosted students’ chances of graduating high school, according to an official evaluation released today by the federal Department of Education.  Students who used vouchers, versus those who were eligible but did not receive or use vouchers, had a 21 percent greater chance of graduating high...

by Collin Hitt

Using a school voucher in D.C. significantly boosted students’ chances of graduating high school, according to an official evaluation released today by the federal Department of Education.  Students who used vouchers, versus those who were eligible but did not receive or use vouchers, had a 21 percent greater chance of graduating high school.  This finding alone would make the program one of the most significant anti-poverty, anti-dropout programs ever tested with the “gold standard” method called random assignment.

The study, consistent with past years, also found evidence of substantial reading gains for students who used vouchers.  However, the findings were deemed to be significant at the .06 level – meaning that there is a 6 percent chance that the pattern of higher math scores is merely due to factors other than the program.  In social science, standard practice (while not observed by the feds when hypinggovernment preschool programs) is to report “statistically significant” findings only when there is a 5 percent or smaller likelihood that those findings are due to chance.  When it comes to improving reading skills, the findings for years have shown a 95-ish percent likelihood that students using vouchers see 4-5 months worth of learning gains – but those findings have also toed the line of “statical significance,” sometimes climbing above it and sometimes falling below it.

So, for now, we can be certain of one thing.  Or, according to the study, we should be 99 percent certain of one thing: the D.C. Voucher program has proven an unprecedented success in combating the persistent dropout crisis in our nation’s capitol.

Democrats in Congress worked hard to kill this program last year.  Being as that dropping out of high school can literally sentence a kid to a lifetime of poverty and intermittent jail time, maybe lawmakers will change their minds in the face of this new report.