Virtually every state has now spelled out high standards for student achievement, many of them enforced by tests for promotion and graduation from high school. Rigorous accountability systems have been introduced for teachers and school administrators accompanied by monetary incentives for success and sanctions for failure. Many states are focusing on reducing class sizes. It has taken us nearly two decades to put together these and other strategies relating to curricula, teacher training, early childhood education and other elements that contribute to a successful school, and they are now paying off. It is wishful thinking to assert, as voucher proponents do, that struggling schools will somehow magically transform themselves because of a threat that some of their students will take a voucher, pack up their book bags and go elsewhere.
Vouchers address the wrong problem by narrowing the issue.
Few would dispute that private schools can provide a good academic education. The New Zealand study proves the point of voucher opponents. We cannot support a policy of educational triage that allows a few students to get help while neglecting the needs of the many more students left behind. Finally, the current push for vouchers is ill-timed. As already noted, we now have evidence that the concerted efforts in recent years to improve the teaching and learning that occurs in public schools is paying off.