Not in Milwaukee where academic results have been mixed, at best. According to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, voucher student reading scores increased the first year, fell substantially the second and remained about the same the next two years. Here the MEA and NEA are simply out of touch with the educational research community. Paul E. Peterson and Jiangtao Du of Harvard University, along with Jay P. Green of the University of Houston, recently led a statistical reanalysis of the public Milwaukee voucher experiment. They found that after three years in private schools, choice students showed greater gains in both reading and mathematics than those unfortunate students left behind in the public schools.
Positive results continue to come in from other voucher programs .
This problem is easily avoided. Finally, even if the popular consensus was that every family should receive a voucher for the full value of their children's education, the system could still easily avoid increasing the overall tax burden. As is well known, public schools are notoriously inefficient when it comes to spending, costing more than existing private schools. As competition amongst private schools intensified, prices would no doubt drop even lower. A conspicuous case of the pot calling the kettle black.