Vouchers to pay for tuition at private schools have been around since the ’90’s in a few states, giving plenty of time to see if this tool of the “school choice”proponents really makes a difference in educational outcomes, especially for low-income students. In general, while proponents see vouchers as a way for parents to help their children escape “failing schools” and get into high-quality private schools, the experience over several decades has been quite different.

1. Vouchers are rarely enough money to pay for a private school education, and private schools are often not located nearby, are already at capacity or only accept students who meet their criteria. In states where there are few or no restrictions on who can use vouchers, the programs have ended up being subsidies for middle and upper middle class families to send their children to private school, draining funding from public schools. Arizona, in particular, has blown a big hole in their state budget by opening up vouchers with few restrictions.
2. Large-scale voucher programs, including those in Milwaukee, Louisiana, Indiana and Ohio have shown little to no impact on academic performance and graduation rates for students using vouchers, compared to their public school counterparts.
3. Vouchers unfairly draw funding away from rural areas where high-quality private schooling is not available.
4. While the Supreme Court, in Carson v Mankin, ruled that voucher programs could not exclude religious schools, many people are troubled by the use of public funds to support schools that indoctrinate children in a particular faith.
5. Most state voucher programs do no put any accountability requirements on schools receiving funding. Schools have received funding that were later found to be financially mismanaged or delivering substandard education.

Here are some articles on vouchers and their impact:

MinnPost (2022): “After two decades of studying voucher programs, I’m now firmly opposed to them”

The New Yorker (2025): “How Religious Schools Became a Billion-Dollar Drain on Public Education”