I agree we should “Give vouchers–and kids–a chance” (Editorial, Oct. 18). It is worth noting that school choice for poor and minority students came a step closer to reality when the House on Oct. 9 approved 203-202, with Speaker Newt Gingrich casting the deciding vote, a District of Columbia spending bill that gives poor children federal subsidies for private school tuition.
School choice works. Harvard University and the University of Houston recently studied about 1,100 mostly minority Milwaukee students in private schools under the controversial, publicly funded school-choice program and found voucher students in their third year scored an average of 3 percentage points higher on standard reading tests and 5 percent higher on math tests than their public school counterparts. The students scored 11 percentage points higher on math in their fourth year at voucher schools and nearly 5 points higher in reading.
Jay Greene and Paul Peterson, authors of the study, concluded, “If similar success could be achieved for all minority students nationwide, it could close the gap separating white and minority test scores by somewhere between one-third and one-half.”
The families of the choice students, who were 97 percent minority compared to 60 percent from the public schools at large, had an average income 40 percent below the average of those in public schools, and their families were more likely to be headed by single mothers on welfare or unemployment. Kids were admitted to choice schools on a random basis. They were not cherry-picked. The rest went back to public schools, creating something rare in social science, a random test and control group.
Despite the average public school student starting from a much better position, the choice school students not only caught up with them but left them in the dust. Why should Bill Clinton be the only resident of public housing who can afford to send his child to the school of his choice?
