Vouchers Fail

Educational voucher systems have NEVER been about providing better educational programs for children. They have always been about privatizing education so that taxes could be cut, more of the cost of education could be placed on parents, and the wealthy could stop paying taxes into a system that helped poor people. Congress has been messing with a voucher system in DC for several years now and the first report on the success of the program has just been released. It's like almost all of the other voucher systems that have been implemented. They're getting failing grades.

A voucher program designed to send low-income children in the District to better-performing private schools has allowed some students to take classes in unsuitable learning environments and from teachers without bachelor's degrees, according to a government report.

The shortcomings are detailed in a draft prepared by the Government Accountability Office about the $12.9 million D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. The GAO said the program lacks financial controls and has failed to check whether the participating schools were accredited.

From the Washington Post (read more here) via Crooks and Liars (read more here).