A report released by the Manhattan Institute addresses the question of how private school voucher programs should be regulated. That is, if private schools are to receive public funds, what accountability mechanisms can fairly and reasonably safeguard taxpayer dollars? The report advocates for relaxing accountability mechanisms that presently constrain some voucher programs, asserting that “more and better” private schools will participate in response, benefitting students academically. Such claims, however, are supported by a selective reading and intentional misreading of educational research. Insofar as that is the case, the report merely repeats well-worn ideological positions and neither advances what we know about the challenge of regulating private schools nor offers useful information for policy decisions.

A Heritage Foundation report argues that special interest groups are pushing for excessive federal relief. Such spending, the report suggests, will come at the immediate expense of priorities like national defense. It recommends that instead of increasing spending, policy leaders should renegotiate teacher contracts, trim administrative “bloat,” and give schools more discretion over how to spend their reduced budgets. But the report’s findings and recommendations are poorly grounded, and its selective use of data presents a misleading picture of the school funding landscape.