I happened to catch a little bit of Kris Boyd's "Think" last night on NPR:
The politics of school vouchers
Despite hard evidence that they [don't] work, school voucher programs are still gaining steam. Josh Cowen, professor of education policy at Michigan State University, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why "school choice" is such a hot-button issue, the influential people behind its growth, and why this push is signaling distrust of public schools. His book is "The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers."
One of the takeaways from his research was that there is a direct correlation between spending and improvement of outcomes with public education (from test score performance to later life successes, health, and reduced crime); whereas while school voucher "competition" does have a history of marginal improvement, if the money diverted to vouchers was instead directly investedto the schools it would increase the improvement exponentially.
Available to listen here: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/478859728/think (December 2 episode)