The study, covering a 15-year span, was one of the longest-term measurements of education outcomes for the recipients of vouchers. As the first study to use a randomized experiment to measure the effect of school vouchers on college enrollments, it represents the scientific gold standard. Vouchers had “large, statistically significant impacts” on students. For example, college enrollment jumped by 24 percent for black students, confirming earlier data showing improved graduation rates and academic achievement among voucher students.

When the Utah Legislature passed, and Gov. Jon Huntsman signed, a modest voucher bill, voters were swayed by the fear-mongering public school cabal and knocked it down in a referendum vote. This was pretty dumb in light of the fact that vouchers would have injected considerable new money into the public school system without raising taxes. That’s because only a portion of the cost of a private school would have been covered by the voucher. The balance would have come directly — and voluntarily — out of the pockets of the parents who wanted to switch their kids.

The Harvard/Brookings study (PDF HERE) shows that all the gloom and doom was without merit. Vouchers work. And they remain an appropriate use of public money. The state collects taxes and pays out a certain amount for each child to get an education, thereby fulfilling the public mandate. It should matter to no one where that education takes place, just so long as it does. And if you can get parents to voluntarily cough up more money, so much the better.

Utah has been rolling a square wheel in public education for a long time and getting nowhere fast. The Harvard data point out the wisdom of round wheels. Do you think we will now get a clue?