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Friday, April 9, 2010

Milwaukee Vouchers are Only a Failure if By “Failure” You Mean “Failure” � The Quick and the Ed

Milwaukee Vouchers are Only a Failure if By “Failure” You Mean “Failure” � The Quick and the Ed

Milwaukee Vouchers are Only a Failure if By “Failure” You Mean “Failure”

Rick Hess offers this spin on the newly-announced failure of the Milwaukee voucher program to improve student learning:
[The study found that] when it comes to test scores, students with vouchers are performing no differently than other kids. (It is worth noting that [voucher] students are being educated more cheaply than are district school students). What to make of the results? First off, 20 years in, it’s hard to argue that the nation’s biggest and most established voucher experiment has “worked” if the measure is whether vouchers lead to higher reading and math scores. Happily, that’s never been my preferred metric for structural reforms–both because I think it’s the wrong way to study them (see “Science and Nonscience“) but, more importantly, because choice-based reform


STUDENT Loan Reform

Education Sector’s student loan guru, Ben Miller, sat down with The Nation’s Christopher Hayes to talk federal student loan reform. Ben explained how the changes that come with these reforms will impact students — past, present, and future. Take a listen.