Journal Article Review

Ladd, Helen F. (2002). School Vouchers: A critical view. The Journal of Economic Perspecties. Nashvill: Fall 2002. Vol. 16, Iss. 4; pg 3, 22 pgs.

This article discusses the controversy around school vouchers, which enable parents to use public funding to send their children to private schools. The 'common' belief is that a widespread voucher program would force lower-performing public schools to be more competitive with private schools and would improve overall school performance. However, this article actually suggests that a widespread voucher program would not create gains in student performance and could actually harm disadvantaged students.

The author looked at student performance in Chile and New Zealance, which basically have a large-scale voucher program in place, as well as performance in states in this country that have small voucher programs in place. In these programs, no significant improvement can be seen in student performance. In addition, a widespread voucher program won't overcome the fact that schools in inner-cities lack funding but would only exacerbate this issue, thus causing lower performance in these schools and thus, it would be detrimental to the students left there.

A weakness in the article is that is just reviews existing studies and no primary research was conducted. While I agree that a widespread voucher program is not a good idea, and the author's reasons do make sense, I have an additional problem with voucher programs in this country. A voucher program would enable parents to use public funding to send their children to religious private schools which is absolutely at odds with the US Constitutional separation of church and state. So, in general, both the article and I don't suggest a widespread voucher program.



http://fa9cv9qa2b.scholar.serialssolutions.com/?sid=google&auinit=HF&aulast=Ladd&atitle=School+Vouchers:+A+Critical+View&id=doi:10.1257/089533002320950957