Update with link added below.
Reporting a new survey on the success of a federal voucher program in the District of Columbia, New York Times reporter Sam Dillon portrayed the federal program as a failure, albeit one that makes parents of voucher students feel good on the taxpayers' dime.
Here's how Dillon opened his story (emphasis mine):
Students who participated in the first year of the District of Columbia’s federally financed school voucher program did not show significantly higher math or reading achievement, but their parents were satisfied anyway, viewing the private schools they attended at taxpayer expense as safer and better than public schools, according to an Education Department study released yesterday.
Nowhere in his article does Dillon dive into problems that have plagued D.C. public schools that have helped push parents to seize the opportunity to send a child to private school on the public dime.
Instead, Dillon goes to lengths to castigate parents of voucher students as out-of-touch with reality about their child's education:
Parents of students using the vouchers were significantly more likely to give the school their child attended a grade of A or B than were parents of students rejected by the lottery, the study found.
Joseph P. Viteritti, a professor of public policy at Hunter College, said those findings were consistent with studies of other voucher programs.
“To me,” Mr. Viteritti said, “it just means that parents are happy to have a choice.”
Dillon's message is clear: parents are deluded to think their kids are better off academically, all the while the taxpayer is soaked with the bill. But Dillon only hinted in passing at another argument that cut against the bias of his article: the study window was too short to mean anything:
Grover J. Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the Education Department agency that oversaw the study told reporters yesterday that it was too early to tell whether the program would significantly affect student achievement.
Of course, Whitehurst works for the Bush administration and so he'd have a bias towards putting the results in their best light, some might argue.
But other academics outside the Department of Education would agree with Whitehurst. The Washington Post's Amit Paley and Theola Labbe found one from Harvard University, not exactly a bastion of right-wing educational theory (emphasis mine):
In studies of those programs and others funded with private money, researchers tended to find little improvement in test scores after one year, said Paul Peterson, director of Harvard University's program on education policy and governance. He said it takes time for students to adjust to new surroundings.
"Kids lose ground when they change schools. Even if they may be in a better school, they're not going to adjust to that right off the bat," he said. "It doesn't happen overnight. It's a slow process."
Update (16:01 EDT): I had a few problems with the Post's coverage as well but found it more balanced than Dillon's. Cato Institute blogger Adam Schaeffer takes the Washington Post to task:
The Post prints a headline today that’s a lesson in how to slant the news while appearing on the surface to remain neutral. Here’s their headline: “Voucher Students Show Few Gains in First Year.” No one expected them to! Again, studies show choice has an effect, but it’s not magic fairy dust that makes students savants after the average of seven months they spent at a new school. And the numbers involved in this tiny program are, well, tiny.
But the subtitle is the kicker, and combined it’s a despicable exercise in political activism masquerading as journalism; “D.C. Results Typical, Federal Study Says.” Here’s the trick; suggest, falsely, that it’s newsworthy that vouchers don’t immediately and massively increase student achievement, then suggest that choice programs typically don’t lead to improvements.
