NEPC Review: The 123s of School Choice: What the Research Says About Private School Choice

Adding to this contentious body of research is a new report from EdChoice, The 123s of School Choice: What the Research Says about Private School Choice Programs in Ameri- ca, 2023 Edition.2 EdChoice—previously the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, founded by and named after the intellectual author of the modern voucher movement—has emerged as a primary advocate for school vouchers and v. [...] This failure to consider basic understandings of the weakness of this type of research is iron- ic, given EdChoice’s claimed elevation of “rigorous” research: “matters of methodology are taken seriously at all levels of our organization.”16 In the report’s vote-counting approach, the “vote” of all studies is the same, regardless of essential differences in their worth. [...] Improving learning outcomes is the “main pur- pose” of such programs, according to the author of the first study featured on the first line of the figure.18 This figure tallies the learning impacts on voucher program participants in 17 studies from 2001 to 2021. [...] Review of the Validity of the Findings and Conclusions While the report pays lip service to nuance, its overall conclusion is summed up on the first page: “Does school choice work? The short answer is yes.”34 This, of course, discounts the most recent and, in many ways, best evidence on the “main purpose” of these programs, which shows the exact opposite—that not only does school choice not necess. [...] The 123s of school choice: What the research says about private school choice programs in America, 2023 edition (p.