Sign Up For Our Newsletter

The lowdown in Ohio (June 13: now with comment from reporter)

With two articles and a blog post on the subject, it seems Scott Elliott can scarcely contain his glee that a mere 2,568 students–5.5 percent of those eligible–applied for the new Ohio voucher program.  His blog post is probably what deserves the most attention. 

There’s an interesting contrast in today’s the Dayton Daily News between the political spin and the on-the-street reality on the issue of vouchers. And I enjoyed how one genuine parent voice brought some real clarity to the question of whether Ohio’s statewide voucher program is off to a great start or a disappointing start.

One "genuine parent voice".  So parents who might actually be pleased with the initial sign-up are somehow counterfeit?  Apparently so, since there are no quotes from any such parents in his blog post or articles.  

The Friedman folks helpfully sent some talking points out to Ohio’s pro-voucher crowd with a rebuttal to any media suggestion that the 5.5 percent initial participation in the voucher program is a small number. The group ran a list of other programs and showed initial participation was:

• 0.7 percent in Milwaukee
• 0.3 percent for Florida McKay scholarships
• 1.7 percent in Washington, D.C.
• And even smaller in less similar tax credit programs in other states

And deeper in the blog post he says this:

So is the voucher participation low? As someone who tracked the issue pretty closely for the past year, I thought it would be much higher.

And why is that? The unspoken message here and elsewhere is that because the initial participation numbers are fudged or doctored in some way because they were distributed by Friedman in the form of talking points.  Elliott has repeatedly been told that initial participation in school choice programs is historically low, and that the Ohio program has the second-highest participation as a percentage of eligible applicants and the highest in absolute number of applicants.  So does he think the Friedman folks are making stuff up as they go along?  And how high did he expect initial enrollment to be?  (ONE OTHER NOTE: given that the programs in question–particularly Milwaukee and Florida–have had significantly higher enrollments in subsequent years, that goes a long way to showing that, yes, school choice programs grow in popularity over time.)

He does bring up some good points here:

But the program was hampered by several factors:

• First, the rules changed in the middle of the game when lawmakers expanded eligibility in March. So for months, parents had one message about eligibility only to get another message later on.
• Second, the rules are complicated and don’t make it very easy for parents. To apply for a voucher, a student must first apply and be accepted to a private school (which means paying application fees, etc.) and then the SCHOOL must submit the actual voucher application. It’s not a simple process.
• Third, I think Husted and others are probably right that it will take time for people to really understand the program and learn the ropes of applying.

And as luck would have it, those first two points (and the third one as well, really) were made by Matthew Carr here (that was from his original article here).  But elsewhere in the post Elliott critically references an e-mailed article he received from Carr (probably this one).  It’s a bit revealing that Elliott needles Carr on one hand and pretty much agrees with him on the other. 

But there’s no doubt 5.5 percent participation and as much as 11,000 unused vouchers has to be a disappointment for those favoring this reform.

Well, we certainly favored this reform, and as we already said, we certainly aren’t disappointed.  Aside from the fact that the Ohio program’s initial application numbers have outpaced nearly every other school choice program passed in U.S. history and that there was a huge surge in applications in the final days (many people reported waiting lines at admissions offices at choice schools), there is, as Elliott himself reported, a second application period next month.  So the final numbers still have time to climb, and as word continues to get around about the program, rest assured they will. 

In short, for the benefit of Matt Ladner, we’ll draw a football analogy: Elliott is trying rather hard to give his wrap-up analysis at halftime.  In the interests of fairness, the least he could do is wait until the end of the game.