In an otherwise fine September 22nd article on a new study showing that New York City students who win a lottery to enroll in charter schools outperform those who don’t win spots, John Hechinger and Ianthe Jeanne Gugan write in the Wall Street Journal:

Critics of charter schools have long argued that any higher test scores were not necessarily attributable to anything the schools were doing, but to the students themselves, on the premise that only the most motivated students and families elected charters. Ms. Hoxby’s study sought to address that argument by comparing students who attend charters directly with

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Reporting about President Obama’s upcoming meeting with Mayor Bloomberg, former Speaker Gingrich, and Rev. Al Sharpton, the New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny misreports the administration’s new position about the future of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program:

The private meeting comes on the same day that Mr. Obama will announce his intention to extend the school voucher program in the District of Columbia. The program provides scholarships to about 1,700 poor students so they can attend private schools, but it was scheduled to end this year, creating uncertainty for the students already enrolled.

While Mr. Obama remains opposed to voucher programs,

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On April 4, the Washington Post published a story by Maria Glod covering the release of a new Department of Education evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, which currently helps 1,700 low-income children attend private schools in the nation’s capital.

As the Post’s story accurately reports, the academic evaluation found that, after three years, voucher students were outperforming their peers who remained in public school in reading; specifically, by about four months of learning. Like previous evaluations, the new report also found that parents of voucher students were more satisfied with their child’s school.

Glod’s report fails to … Continue Reading

Liberal interest groups scored a victory this week when the Arizona State Supreme Court ruled that two voucher programs designed to help special education students and foster children attend private school violated the state’s constitution.

Writing about the court case in the March 26, Arizona Republic, reporters Pat Kossan and Emily Gersema slipped in a misleading generalization about school vouchers’ effectiveness. They wrote: “Vouchers are the most controversial and least successful of school-choice reforms that have swept the country during the past decade.”

This probably gives readers the impression that school voucher programs aren’t working. But an actual look … Continue Reading

On March 22, The State newspaper in South Carolina profiled a top Democratic lawmaker’s change of heart on school choice. State Sen. Robert Ford, a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination for 2010, is now supporting legislation that would give families across the state greater power to choose their children’s school.

In explaining how Senator Ford is breaking with some of his colleagues in the state legislature, reporter Roddie Burris makes a sweeping generalization about who supports school vouchers:

…African-American lawmakers have continued to resist public money for private schools. Instead, improving public schools, where nearly all African-American children attend,

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