Fed Ed head Arne Duncan has stepped into the voucher bees' nest. He will not support renewal of the five-year-old Washington D. C. voucher pilot program even though a third annual report found some statistically significant reading gains.

This has caused the usually Arne-loving Tribune to go into a tizzy and spew a bunch of misinformation, including the idea that the new report on D. C. is positive, and that the 20-year-old Milwaukee voucher program has been a success.   

The truth is, the two major studies of the Milwaukee program (in 1995 and 2009) concluded that there was no measurable academic benefit to students in the voucher program.

And, the official Department of Education report found no evidence of a statistically significant difference in test scores between voucher and non-voucher students.

Let's look a little deeper. The D. C. report shows that  reading (but not math) scores were higher for voucher students who came from schools that were already making adequate yearly progress and for higher-achieving students. Results for voucher students in the first cohort, that is, the students who entered the program three years ago, were also higher in reading, but the authors consider that data unreliable.

Scores were statistically no better for non-voucher students and voucher students in the lower third of the test score distribution or whose schools failed to make AYP. These already-disadvantaged students are designated by Congress as the highest priority group for the voucher program, but they showed the least academic gain.

The National Association of School Boards concludes, "not only does the experimental program lack academic evidence to support its continuation, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report documented several accountability shortcomings – including federal taxpayer dollars funding tuition at private schools that do not even charge tuition, schools that lacked city occupancy permits, and schools employing teachers without bachelor’s degrees . It also noted that children with physical or learning disabilities are underrepresented compared to the public schools."

Yeah, we know what that's like.