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Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 11.
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Conference Paper
Lessons from private-school vouchers in Columbia
Journal Article
Vouchers and the Cleveland Scholarship Program: little progress so far
Voucher programs are intended to raise the academic achievement of students, but, unfortunately, so far the evidence suggests that Cleveland?s voucher students perform no better than their counterparts in public schools.
Working Paper
School vouchers and student achievement: recent evidence, remaining questions
In this article, we review the empirical evidence on the impact of education vouchers on student achievement, and briefly discuss the evidence from other forms of school choice. The best research to date finds relatively small achievement gains for students offered education vouchers, most of which are not statistically different from zero. Further, what little evidence exists regarding the potential for public schools to respond to increased competitive pressure generated by vouchers suggests that one should remain wary that large improvements would result from a more comprehensive voucher ...
Report
Vouchers, public school response, and the role of incentives: evidence from Florida
In this paper, I analyze the behavior of public schools facing vouchers. The literature on the effects of voucher programs on public schools typically focuses on student and mean school scores. This paper tries to go inside the black box to investigate some of the ways in which schools facing the threat of vouchers in Florida behaved. Under a 1999 program, Florida schools earning an "F" grade for the first time were exposed to the threat of vouchers, but did not face vouchers unless and until they got a second "F" within the next three years. Exploiting the institutional details of this ...
Journal Article
School vouchers: recent findings and unanswered questions
The authors review the existing literature on the impact of school vouchers on student achievement. They conclude that expectations about the ability of vouchers to drastically improve student achievement, at least as measured by test scores, should be tempered by the results of the studies to date. Also, there is very little evidence about the potential for public schools to respond to increased competitive pressure generated by vouchers.
Report
Vouchers, responses, and the test-taking population: regression discontinuity evidence from Florida
While there is a rich literature that investigates whether accountability regimes induce schools to manipulate their test-taking population by strategically excluding weaker students, no study thus far investigates whether voucher programs induce schools to engage in similar strategic behavior. This paper analyzes a Florida program that embedded vouchers in an accountability regime. Specifically, it investigates whether the threat of vouchers and the stigma associated with the Florida program induced schools to strategically manipulate their test-taking population. Under Florida rules, scores ...
Report
Impact of voucher design on public school performance: evidence from Florida and Milwaukee voucher programs
This paper examines the impact of vouchers in general and voucher design in particular on public school performance. It argues that all voucher programs are not created equal. There are often fundamental differences in voucher designs that affect public school incentives differently and induce different responses from them. It analyzes two voucher programs in the United States. The 1990 Milwaukee experiment can be looked upon as a "voucher shock" program that suddenly made low-income students eligible for vouchers. The 1999 Florida program can be looked upon as a "threat of voucher" program, ...
Journal Article
Program design, incentives, and response: evidence from educational interventions
In an effort to reform K-12 education, policymakers have introduced school vouchers?scholarships that make students eligible to transfer from public to private schools?in some U.S. school districts. This article analyzes two such educational interventions in the United States: the Milwaukee and Florida voucher programs. Under the Milwaukee program, vouchers were imposed from the outset, so that all low-income public school students became eligible for vouchers to transfer to private schools. In contrast, schools in the Florida program were only threatened with vouchers, with students of a ...
Newsletter
School vouchers: the right choice or wrong policy for improving our schools?
August is back-to-school time, but for many families that means a return to poor-performing schools. The perennial question is how to improve performance. The use of school vouchers is one proposed but highly debated solution. This article examines the history of school vouchers and the major arguments for and against them.
Conference Paper
Education vouchers and the Cleveland Scholarship Program