The Privateers: How Billionaires Sold School Vouchers” (2024) by Josh Cowen
These are just quotes straight from the book.
1. Today’s Voucher Programs Primarily Support Students Who Were Never in Public School
2. The Larger and More Recent the Voucher Program Is, the Worse the Academic Results
3. Financially Distressed Private Schools Explain Negative Student Results
4. The Most Vulnerable Kids Suffer High Voucher Turnover- Or Are Pushed Out of Voucher Schools
5. Oversight Improves Voucher Performance
6. Parents Looking for Academic Quality Struggle to Find Room in Private Schools
7. Voucher- Induced Competition Raises Public School Outcomes Somewhat-But the Evidence for Directly Funding Vulnerable Schools Is Stronger Instead
This case against school vouchers is not one sided, but it is as one sided as social science gets. The evidence presented here was uncovered across multiple fields of academic expertise, using multiple methodologies, and across many different cities and state locations.
To this research has been added, especially in recent years, investigative reporting anything that will provide vouchers a new edge of forward momentum.
These results … posed something of an existential crisis for voucher advocacy. These negative data appeared across different states, different legislative and regulatory frameworks, and for the first time apart from the carefully controlled settings of voucher advocacy research.
… warnings about discrimination, exclusion, and human rights alongside very practical threats to democracy on issues like voting and the peaceful transition of electoral power.
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