Blog from the Capital

The Christian Science Monitor provides an update. I don't need to tell you what happens when public money is diverted out of the public schools and becomes available to private, including religious, schools. But even I didn't think it would be this bad this soon:

The voucher program has given new life to venerable Catholic and Lutheran schools in the city, and has spurred the creation of dozens of new schools - many of them religious - that rely solely on voucher students. All told, about 70 percent of the voucher schools are religious. Some of those schools, like Hope, show signs of excellence, but not all.

In one of the worst instances, a convicted rapist opened a school, which has since shut down. Reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tried to visit all 115 schools then in the program last year, and found a mixed bag. Nine schools refused to let reporters in, and the paper cited "10 to 15 others where ... the overall operation appeared alarming when it came to the basic matter of educating children."

One school was opened by a woman who said she had a vision from God to start a school, and whose only educational background was as a teacher's aide. Others had few books or signs of a coherent curriculum. Yet they've been able to enroll students.

Sure, there are feel-good stories of capable children moving from a failing situation to a thriving one. But, the bulk of the evidence says what we've always known about voucher programs; they send public money to religious institutions, encourage the creation of religious schools of dubious educational integrity, are unable to maintain quality control, and offer no measurable improvement in the only thing that matters: student achievement.