Dive Brief:

• The only federally-funded voucher program in the country had a negative impact in mathematics achievements on students who used the voucher scholarship, according to an analysis of the program’s efficacy conducted by the Institute of Education Sciences.
• The report, which studied students in Washington, DC, who accepted or were denied voucher scholarships from 2012 to 2014, showed that vouchers did not have a statistically significant impact in most other ways, though parents whose students received a voucher for tuition felt the new schools were "safer."
• The report did note that it was only able to report on the first-year students who could use their scholarships, and that feelings could change in later years. The study was also confined only to the District of Columbia, and different locales could generate other outcomes.

Dive Insight:

Analyses of outcomes on voucher programs often have varying results, with positive and negative outcomes for students as frequent as no statistically significant outcome at all. However, with the confirmation of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the conversation is now more pertinent than ever. Presdient Donald Trump’s proposed budget would cut 13.5% of the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, while shifting $1.4 billion to school choice options including voucher funding. The DC experiment might be exponentially replicated in years to come.

When speaking about the increased popularity of school choice options amongst parents, it is important to note that not all school choice options are judged equally. Public knowledge and support for charter schools intensified during the Obama era, but the growth in popularity of options may not lead to more support for vouchers, as this Education Next survey indicates.

The analysis found that public support for vouchers fell from 55% to 43% between 2012 and 2016, and, surprisingly, the survey also found greater support for vouchers among Democrats than Republicans. It seems likely that charter school expansion will continue and even accelerate under DeVos’ tenure, but it may not be a given that she will be able to count on support for expanded voucher programs.