Tierney on Florida Vouchers

John Tierney:

How can you claim the moral high ground when you're denying him a chance to escape to a better private school?

Well, the public system did lose $4,400, but that's actually $1,000 less than the cost of educating the average student and there was one pupil fewer to teach.

As enrollment has dropped at Edison, the student-to-teacher ratio has improved to about 22 from about 30. In the past two years, a new principal has revamped the administration and replaced half the teachers in the school. Under the new leadership, the average test score at the school last year rose dramatically - one of the largest increases of any high school in Florida.

Edison's improvement is not an isolated example, as three separate studies have found in Florida. Test scores have gone up more rapidly at schools facing the threat of vouchers than at other schools. The latest study, by Martin West and Paul Peterson of Harvard, shows that Florida's program is much more effective than the federal No Child Left Behind program.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 8, 2005 12:02 AM
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