Private School Parents Hurt Their Kids by Taking Free Government Money
State Data: The longer a private school parent takes tuition subsidies, the worse their students do academically
About three years ago, I wrote about the interesting phenomenon that the longer an Ohio kid takes a voucher, the worse they do on state tests.
As I started looking at this year’s most recent education data, I decided to examine this again. What I found left me simply gob smacked. That’s because the situation today is far, far worse than it was when I last looked at it.
How much worse?
How about this:
On all proficiency tests, students getting a voucher for one year or less overall1 are about 75% proficient. Three years later, they’re 54% proficient.
That’s a drop of nearly 1/3!
What’s that like in comparison with school districts? That 75% proficiency rate is about what public school students in suburban Cloverleaf Local Schools in Medina County receives. The 54% proficiency rate is about what public school students in Appalachian New Boston Local in Scioto County receive. A reminder that the number one determinant of test score success is the income level of the test taker.
Just for reference, about 40% of Cloverleaf’s students are economically disadvantaged and their community’s median income is $76,271. New Boston is 99.997% economically disadvantaged and their median income is $39,525.
So at the end of three years, voucher students’ performance drops from that of a typical upper middle class suburban student to that of a typical poor, Appalachian student. Put another way, the voucher students’ first-year scores would rank in the top 1/4 of all Ohio Public School Districts; their third-year scores would rank in the bottom 1/5 of all Ohio Public School Districts.
Not great.
It’s even worse if you dig into the individual scores. For example, high school voucher receipients drop 41% in math and 31% in reading2.
Voucher students in K-8 grades drop 21% in reading and 31% each in math and science.
Importantly, there is no subject in which voucher students are tested where they improve their proficiency over 3 years.
Again. Not great.
I’m frankly stunned these data haven’t slowed the state’s continued shoveling of money to private school parents in order to subsidize their private school tuition. Instead, Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget provides a 17% increase in voucher funding. And a $100 million cut to public school students.
Again I ask: Why do these guys so prefer private school parents over public school students
And I’ve got an even tougher question:
What about these parents taking vouchers? Are they really trying to give their kids a better opportunity? Or are they just seeking a government handout?
Because it sure doesn’t seem to be academic quality that’s driving their decision here.
I combined all test takers and passers (K-8 testers and high school testers in all subjects) together — like how the state does it for the performance index score. Test takers in math are far less proficient than reading or social studies. But overall, I wanted to reduce it to a number.
Again, percent drop, not percentage point drop.
Is there a part 2 of this - ??