Josh Cowen Profile picture
Sep 5, 2022 • 9 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
🧵
1/ For those who haven’t been neck deep in #schoolchoice debates for two decades let me walk you through the evolution of this argument about outcomes—it was driven by #voucher research.

Early 1990s: #schoolchoice is a rising tide that lifts all academic boats!
2/
1990s cont’d: #vouchers seem to look pretty cool: Cecilia Rouse’s dissertation finds positive test score effects in Milwaukee’s pilot program and so do Jay Greene and Paul Peterson (well, uh, no shock there 🙄)
3/
2002-04: Maybe not. Peterson-led work finds + effects of a small privately #voucher program, but then Alan Krueger shows they were highly, ahem, sensitive to model/sample choice. (Who are *you* picking as your starting research QB: Peterson or Krueger?)
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
4/
2005-2010: the first legislatively authorized (WI and USED) evaluations of honest-to-God publicly funded #vouchers. Get ready to break out the champagne and show vouchers work once and for all!!! (Narrator: They don’t Test score effects are null in both sites).
5/
2012-2013.
Oh…crap. What the hell is happening in Louisiana? Thanks to Katrina, that state is supposed to be proving school choice works once and for all! But #vouchers there look catastrophic on test scores especially in math.
6/
2013: Quick! Find another outcome to study, and fast. How about…attainment?
7/
2013-2018. Eh, those attainment studies aren’t persuasive enough, because Ohio, DC and Indiana are looking almost as bad on test scores as Louisiana. What do we do?
8/
2018-present
Ahhhh ye olde’ parent satisfaction. Safety. Discipline. Who cares about test scores anyway? As long as parents *think* their kids are getting a good education, no need to verify that right?
9/
2018-present (caveat): we’re still super cool using test scores to close public schools and fail third graders for reading results. Just don’t use them to evaluate #vouchers (or charters, which do much better than vouchers so they make vouchers look even worse)

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More from @joshcowenMSU

May 2
Right-wing think tankers slam academic voucher experts because our work predicts key policy failures.

As early as 2007, evaluators in Cleveland found 69.5% voucher users were in private school already—a spot-on estimate of rates reported in the following 10 states today 👇

1/11 Image
First up, Arizona, where 70%+ voucher users were in private school already

2/11
azmirror.com/2022/09/01/pri…
And then there’s Arkansas, where 95% of last year’s new voucher users had never been in public school

3/11
arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/…
Read 11 tweets
Sep 21, 2023
In honor of Betsy DeVos’s appearance with Vivek Ramaswamy on Fox’s Big Money Playbook show today to talk about #education,

Here’s a sampling of headlines about her failed #schoolvouchers scheme while she was ED secretary:

Here’s the time she had to admit the evidence:
1/7🧵 Image
And then there’s the time DeVos’s model program in Indiana released it’s #schoolvouchers results

2/ Image
And yes, those atrocious #schoolvouchers results do linger for years, and not just 👆 in Indiana:

Here’s Louisiana, where initial impacts were about 2x as bad as COVID-19’s impact on academics:

3/ Image
Read 7 tweets
Mar 24, 2023
🧵
So many different Right-$ groups inflating evidence for #schoolvouchers it’s impossible to ✋🛑 all of them. #txlege #gapol #neleg #INed #ksleg

But here’s the general pattern, using this EdChoice table as an example (there are many more):
1/ 🧵
First is the absence of abysmal negative OH, and IN results by teams led by Figlio and Berends, respectively.

Those studies use panel data and methods and find terrible statewide at-scale voucher effects—hugely relevant to legislation today.
2/
chalkbeat.org/2018/8/9/21107…
But #schoolvouchers advocates drop them from tables like the 👆 because they’re not lottery-based studies. It’s true that lotteries are gold standard evaluation tool—but have well-known limitations re: scale and generalizability—key issues today.

Any case, you don’t drop them
3/
Read 13 tweets
Jan 4, 2023
When it comes to oversight and transparency, #miched #education #charterschools are the worst in the country.

It’s not just that they’re almost all for-profit. They are but #OhioEd has for-profit charters for example and much greater 🔎.
#mileg #mipol #migov @Network4pubEd
1/
For-profit #charterschools run on small profit margins for students—as far as we can tell. So it gives charters like those in MI every incentive to cut corners. That’s one problem. #mipol #migov #mileg

2/
But here’s something I’m guessing MI charters really don’t want #mileg members or #miched journalists looking into: property holdings.

The real profit is in various property bought and maintained with tax support. @NPEaction

3/
Read 5 tweets
Dec 23, 2022
There’s a #schoolvouchers link to the #January6thReport. It centers around attorney Cleta Mitchell who led Trump’s GA pressure efforts after the vote. #BigLie

Mitchell is all over the final report:
1/
january6th.house.gov/sites/democrat…
Mitchell is also Board Secretary for the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a huge #schoolvouchers backer out of Wisconsin that’s given $millions to voucher research and advocacy.

2/
archive.jsonline.com/newswatch/2037… ImageImage
The Bradley Foundation is also financially the “extraordinary force” behind #BigLie efforts, per @JaneMayerNYer reporting @NewYorker.

3/
newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
Read 10 tweets
Dec 19, 2022
A🧵 on why the #KYed ruling last week against #schoolvouchers tax credit scheme matters @NPEaction @Network4pubEd @PV4PS @BadassTeachersA @edvoters

1/
First: a win’s a win. It’s good to see #schoolvouchers stopped anywhere. The push to privatize is so relentless, so well-funded by such a narrow swath of backers, it can feel like swinging in the dark against it.

2/
But more concretely: the KY Court found that #schoolvouchers tax credit shell game was a budget commitment even though it’s not a direct appropriation. Reducing revenue by $10 is the same as spending $10.

3/
Read 21 tweets

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