Vouchers Fund Poor Quality Schools

Because voucher programs lack accountability and oversight, vouchers often fund poor quality schools, including those that employ teachers with no credentials, are operated from dilapidated buildings and lack proper facilities, and often teach questionable curriculum. 

Schools in the Wisconsin program, for example, have been found to employ teachers with no education background or teacher credentials and to operate out of old factories, strip malls, or car dealerships. Likewise, a special investigation conducted by the Washington Post found serious problems with the voucher schools in DC, including: “One of those schools was run out of a soot-stained storefront on Georgia Avenue; another unaccredited school was supported by the Nation of Islam and was run out of a rowhouse in Deanwood where the bathroom had a floor blackened with dirt, a sink coated in grime and a bathtub filled with paint cans and cleaning supplies.”

The curriculum taught is also often troubling. In DC, a private school comprising 93% of voucher students was found to be using a “learning model known as “Suggestopedia” – an obscure Bulgarian philosophy of learning that stresses learning through music, stretching and meditation.” And, in states like Louisiana, students using vouchers are being taught creationism in science classes.