Voucher Schools Don't Graduate More Students, Recent Updated Study Says.

This is all I'm hearing from right wingers. More kids graduated from voucher schools than public.

It's not true.

For Immediate Release: Study analysis shows voucher schools have no significant effect on high school, college attainment -Parental factors more important. In February 2012, the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) at the University of Arkansas released a study aimed at discerning whether Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP; voucher) school students in Milwaukee, who were enrolled in 8th and 9th grade in 2006, had higher graduation rates and college attainment rates than matched peers in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).

An updated version of the SCDP study was published in the Policy Studies Journal (PSJ) recently. The SCDP study authors acknowledge the study is only able to examine exposure to the voucher schools, as students who started in an MPCP school at 8th grade may have switched to an MPS school prior to graduation. That student would be counted as an MPCP graduate, and vice versa. There is no accounting for which students switched at what point and to/from what school. Third, only 44% of the MPCP sample remained in a voucher school through grade 12.

The study authors have also remained silent on the mischaracterization of their study findings by Milwaukee voucher school advocates. s. In addition, when factoring in parental characteristics, the effect of voucher school exposure on high school and college attainments disappear completely.-Forward Institute