Will Data Save D.C. Vouchers? « The Quick and the Ed

Will Data Save D.C. Vouchers?

The Year 2 evaluation of the D.C. voucher program was released today. Given the current debate over whether the program should be funded for another year, I’m guessing this study will see a lot of spin in the next few weeks, since there’s a little something for everyone.

Those who’d like to end the program can point out that the results were, all-in-all, underwhelming, but supporters of the voucher program can point to the positive results among certain subgroups. Most notably, students from the first cohort who used the voucher scored significantly higher in reading – supporters might use this to convince lawmakers to hold out for another year or two in order to see if the effects continue for subsequent cohorts. But will a few positive results be enough to save D.C. vouchers?

Update: As Chad points out below, voucher supporters are already grabbing on to the subgroup analysis to support the voucher program. And I’ve already gotten a couple of news releases with headlines touting “academic gains” and “early successes”. For some reason, though, none of these releases mention the fact that the overall analysis of reading results did reach the 91 percent cutoff for statistical significance, but just didn’t quite make it to 95 percent. Maybe that’s just too stats-nerdy for a press release.