Charles Jeter, a former N.C. House member and current government relations coordinator for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, has a confession to make. In an op-ed published by the Charlotte Observer, Jeter declares that he regrets voting for private school vouchers as a member of the legislature.
He writes, “The problem is, now we have clear data that show, beyond any doubt, that these vouchers programs not only don’t help our students, they actually have worse outcomes.”
The single study cited in the op-ed, the Fordham Institute’s Evaluation of Ohio’s EdChoice Scholarship Program (July 2016), actually presented “a mixed bag of findings,” some of which were pretty discouraging admittedly, regarding eligibility and participation in Ohio’s EdChoice voucher program. For Jeter, this means that “vouchers have failed miserably.” I disagree. The research literature on vouchers generally finds positive outcomes for students.
