Mark Dynarski of the Brookings Institution has published a research review in which he concluded that public schools definitely have the advantage over private schools that receive vouchers. This is especially good news because rightwing ideologues continue to argue the (non-existent) benefits of vouchers, and because Brookings had become an advocacy platform for school choice since the appointment of George W. Bush’s education research director, Grover Whitehurst to run its education center  (Whitehurst no longer runs the Brown center program at Brookings).

Here is the executive summary. Open the link to read the full study.

Recent research on statewide voucher programs in Louisiana and Indiana has found that public school students that received vouchers to attend private schools subsequently scored lower on reading and math tests compared to similar students that remained in public schools. The magnitudes of the negative impacts were large. These studies used rigorous research designs that…