Strawman Down! Plus The Anemic Fight Over DC Vouchers

Not too surprisingly D.C. vouchers are back in action as part of the budget deal.  They were included with a set of policy riders as part of the final deal.  Two interesting dimensions to this.  First the actual implementation.  Running a school voucher program is harder than you might think because of issues around income …

More Vouchers!

Jay Greene finds paradise by the blogboard light with a somewhat slippery post wondering again how anyone could possibly think that charter schools are OK but vouchers are not for anything other than nakedly political reasons.   The answer, I’d argue, isn’t that complicated and lies in the imprecision of words like “vouchers.”  At their core vouchers are …

DC Vouchers

A lot of debate today over the federal D.C. voucher program. Erin Dillon cuts to the punchline: Yesterday’s evaluation (pdf) offers something for everyone so the fight will continue regardless of the data.

More DC Vouchers

Sunday’s WaPo had a three-way debate about D.C. vouchers featuring former Mayor Tony Williams, charter school founder James Forman, and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. At one level just superficial back and forth about the recent first year evaluation but some interesting nuggets that are illustrative of the debate today. Forman busts voucher proponents for …

MJS On Vouchers…The Stalking Horse For Charters?

Eduwonk’s colleague New Donkey and Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum are already all over the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel series on the school voucher program in Milwaukee. Articles here and here and don’t miss the sidebars. (The Wash. Post also has a front-page story today about the voucher program in D.C.) Milwaukee is enormously important to the voucher …