Snake Oil, Magic Wands and Vouchers

Kevin Drum reviews the most recent studies and concludes:

Unfortunately for voucher fans, when kids all take the same test it's way too obvious that voucher schools don't really outperform traditional schools. Nor do they outperform schools in poor neighborhoods (that's the blue line in the chart). At best, they perform about the same, and at worst they perform more poorly. Not only does this undermine the case for vouchers, but it also undermines the case that, for example, it's the troglodyte teachers unions that are holding back Wisconsin's kids. That can hardly be tolerated, so the best bet is to simply not allow comparisons to be made in the first place.

Read the whole thing.