Sobering thoughts from Frederick Hess on why the new D.C. voucher program won't have the hoped-for effect of reforming the public school system by exposing it to competition. In fact, the new program shields public schools from real competition by capping enrollment at 3 percent of the school-age population, while actually adding dollars to the woeful D.C. school system - whose grave problems have little to do with the revenues coming into it. As Hess points out, having slightly fewer students actually decreases workloads and institutional pressures for everyone in the public school system, while exposing it to little true competitive pressure (e.g. job loss, funding reductions). Ed reformers do not go unscathed in Hess's article; "For many voucher or charter-school proponents," he writes, "'competition' is more a rhetorical device than a serious tool to promote educational excellence." To really use choice programs to pressure schools to change, the number of students in them needs to increase and, fundamentally, "parents' choices must deny resources to poor schools and bestow resources on good schools."
"Vouchers without competition," by Frederick Hess, Weekly Standard, May 10, 2004 (subscription required)