Ohio data shows school voucher schemes lead to academic harms for students
Gov. Bill Lee’s top legislative priority since his election in 2018 has been a statewide school voucher scheme.
During a special legislative session in January, Lee’s dream was realized. While existing evidence suggested this plan would be both bad for taxpayers and harmful to kids, Lee persisted. Now, new data out of Ohio confirms that those warning of the harms of vouchers were onto something.
Let’s be clear: The data over more than a decade shows that vouchers are both very expensive and ineffective at improving academic achievement.
On all proficiency tests, students getting a voucher for one year or less overall are about 75% proficient. Three years later, they’re 54% proficient.
That’s a drop of nearly 1/3!
The Ohio numbers show that students did not improve in any subject – in fact, their scores declined!
Vouchers are bad.
They hurt kids.
And taxpayers will be on the hook for a program that doesn’t just “not work” it actually has negative impacts.
Bill Lee’s signature legislative achievement is a multi-billion dollar program that will hurt Tennessee kids.
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