Education Sector Press Releases

For Immediate Release

Contact: Education Sector Communications Office, 202.552.2849

Washington, D.C.— Florida's popular McKay Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program promises to give parents seeking private placements for their special-needs children an alternative to the costly, complicated, and time-consuming federal process—a voucher they can use at a public or private school of their choice. And school choice advocates promote the McKay program as a model for other states and the federal government. Four other states have programs modeled after McKay, and at least a half-dozen others are weighing whether to follow suit.

But despite its promise and growing popularity, the McKay program has not yet proven that it works as either an adequate school-choice or special-education reform measure. In this new Education Sector report, Senior Policy Analyst Sara Mead identifies some serious flaws in the program, namely its lack of public accountability and dearth of information on student outcomes.

Mead argues that under the current structure of the program, taxpayers have almost no knowledge of how their money is being spent, and neither taxpayers nor parents have access to solid information about the performance of McKay schools. Mead suggests that expanding school options for students with disabilities is a worthy objective. But she cautions against using McKay as a model and advises policymakers on steps to take as they seek to replicate the program in other states.

Read "Information Underload: Florida's Flawed Special-Ed Voucher Program."

This research was funded by The Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Education Sector is an independent education policy think tank devoted to developing innovative solutions to the nation’s most pressing educational problems. We are nonprofit and nonpartisan, both a dependable source of sound thinking on policy and an honest broker of evidence in key education debates throughout the United States.

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