A new study by a charter school backer says Ohio students who moved to private schools under the state's EdChoice scholarship program tended to perform significantly worse on state reading and math tests compared with public school students. The study reviewed student test data over ten school years. More from Ohio Public Radio's Karen Kasler.
The study was done by the Fordham Institute, which supports school choice. Vice president Chad Aldis says the study only looked at math and reading scores, it didn’t analyze the private schools the voucher students attended and it looked only looked at students remaining in the highest-performing failing schools.
“So we don’t know what happens to kids who attend the very worst public schools that are eligible for EdChoice, and then we also don’t know what’s different in the private schools that is generating lower test results.”
The Ohio Department of Education didn’t react directly to the findings, but said in a statement that competition is good for schools. There are 20,000 kids in the Ohio EdChoice program.
