Voucher Surplus
As the presidential candidates start to fill in their c.v.'s, new support is surfacing for the logic of school vouchers, we see in a post by Ryan Sager on the Sun's politics Web log, latestpolitics.com. He cites a study just out from the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, which is a pro-voucher group, purporting to show that the 18 voucher and tuition-tax-credit programs that currently exist in America have, between 1990 and 2006, saved a total of $444 million.
What's more, Mr. Sager quotes the latest release from the Friedman Foundation as containing even more startling news. "Instructional spending in areas affected by school choice has uniformly increased," it says. Mr. Sager, who is one of journalism's keenest reporters on the education beat, says that, taken together, the findings mean that school districts and states are spending slightly less on education, but more on each individual student left in traditional public schools.
Mr. Sager is in the camp that is, as he puts it, "more concerned with whether vouchers work (studies show they do) than with what they cost." He reckons that "more school spending in return for more accountability would be a fine bargain." He says that the latest findings "should at least combat the idea that vouchers ‘steal money' from traditional public schools," an apt point in light of how the teachers unions and of vouchers have been carrying on this argument.
It's hard to say, Mr. Sager notes, whether school choice will become an issue in the 2008 election. He says that if Mayor Giuliani is the Republican nominee, "it will at least be an issue," as Mr. Giuliani has made it clear he'll be focusing on vouchers as the solution to poorly performing urban public schools. Senator McCain has never made school choice a priority, and Governor Romney has been mum on the issue yet. By our lights, this is another issue on which Mr. Giuliani brings more to the table than the other GOP contenders.
