Quick and the Ed writes about the recently released study of D.C. vouchers' effectiveness:
Those who'd like to end the program can point out that the results were, all-in-all, underwhelming, but supporters of the voucher program can point to the positive results among certain subgroups. Most notably, students from the first cohort who used the voucher scored significantly higher in reading - supporters might use this to convince lawmakers to hold out for another year or two in order to see if the effects continue for subsequent cohorts. But will a few positive results be enough to save D.C. vouchers?
In fact, it is possible to support D.C. vouchers without referencing the above-mentioned study at all. Private school choice, in itself, has plenty of powerful arguments to support it, especially when it occurs in a district such as Washington, D.C., where the public schools are less than satisfactory and filled with poor and minority children who haven't the means to leave them. The stat-happy crowd scoffs, but about this statistical evaluation (in which, of course, both sides will find nuggets of support for their positions) I think: Who cares? Certainly parents whose children are enrolled in the schools don't--for one reason or another, rational or not, they like their new private schools. Perhaps they're safer, perhaps they're in better neighborhoods, perhaps they have nicer smelling hallways. But does it matter? The real question should be: Is the small number of D.C. voucher students worse off educationally than they were before? If not, why shut down this infinitesimally tiny program?
Update: Here's the Washington Post editors on the voucher study in question. Here's the National Review editors.
Update II: More evidence for why we shouldn't really care what??the D.C. voucher study finds.