The Ultimate Argument for School Choice?
There are millions of parents out there who don't have enough money for private school but who have thought just as sensibly and care just as much about their children's education as affluent people do. Let's use the money we are already spending on education in a way that gives those parents the same kind of choice that wealthy people, liberal and conservative alike, exercise right now. That should be the beginning and the end of the argument for school choice.
That's the conclusion of a NY Times op-ed written by Charles Murray, in which he discusses the fallacy of relying on standardized test scores as a means of evaluating K-12 educational results. Murray discusses results of a well-designed study of the Milwaukee school voucher program (oldest in the nation), which found that voucher and traditional students fared about as well as one another (curiously, this sort of finding of parity is always interpreted as a slam on vouchers, which inevitably cost less than traditional per-pupil payouts).
Bonus: Murray complains about measly paycheck for said op-ed.
DC residents ask Barack Obama why he let the city's school voucher program die an ignoble death:
