The Skinny on Vouchers

We talked about vouchers last night after McCain defended them so loudly. I stated that voucher programs have largely failed, but didn't have the specifics at my fingertips to illustrate the point. Thankfully, the Washington Monthly reposted a link to their interesting article about the gleam coming off vouchers' rose.

As I remembered, vouchers have failed to improve students performances--even in the DC program that McCain touted and the famous Milwaukee case (you can read why in the Washington Monthly article). Furthermore (and this is good for us) vouchers are wildly unpopular outside of cities. They've been voted down in several states--including Indiana where rural folks took offense at officials impugning their local public schools largely because they so identify with their high school basketball teams. But, the larger anti-voucher response has come from suburban parents who have blocked any voucher attempts lest poor kids end up in their kids' schools.

So, by hyping vouchers, McCain probably did himself harm. Just another case of him being out of touch with the real world.