SCHOOL VOUCHER Q&A: Using State Tax Dollars To Pay Private School Tuition ‘A Huge Part’ Of Christian Nationalist Agenda, Scholar Says

Michigan State University education policy professor Josh Cowen has spent two decades studying and writing about voucher programs, in which state tax dollars pay students’ private school tuition.

Early studies of small, targeted voucher programs found some positive effects, Cowen says. But as the programs grew larger, results turned negative. Studies of statewide programs in Indiana as well as Louisiana and Ohio, found what Cowen describes as “some of the largest academic declines on record in academic research,” comparable to the impact on learning of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, which dramatically lowered test scores by disrupting students’ lives and keeping them out of schools for extended periods of time.