A
Research Document from the National Education Association and American Federation
of Teachers
Introduction
Vouchers are tuition subsidies for students in public schools to attend
private schools and/or for students already in private schools. Publicly
funded voucher programs are currently underway in Milwaukee and Cleveland.
Privately funded voucher programs are underway in a variety of
places, including most major cities (Atlanta, New York City, Baltimore,
Baton Rouge, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia, San Francisco,
Washington, DC, and others). This overview provides information from independent
evaluations of existing voucher programs, as well as other published reports,
on the results thus far of these voucher programs.
Student Achievement
In general, evaluations of voucher students’ achievement show no
or only small improvements relative to comparable public school students.
The Milwaukee Voucher Program (started in 1990)
- In Milwaukee, an evaluation of the first five years of the voucher
program by University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor John Witte shows
no achievement differences between voucher students and comparable Milwaukee
Public School students. The results are consistent with 30 years of
research showing no significant achievement differences between private
and public students, once background characteristics or course-taking
are taken into account. (Source: John Witte et al, Fifth Year Report:
Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
1995; and Achievement Effects of the Milwaukee Voucher Program,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997.)
- Professors Jay Greene (University of Houston) and Paul Peterson*
and Jiangtao Du (Harvard University) re-analyzed Witte’s data and
concluded that Milwaukee’s voucher students outperformed public
school students in math and reading. This analysis, however, focused
on students in only 3 of the 20 private schools in the voucher program,
and charts contained in the report show that results are only statistically
significant for math in the fourth year of the program. There was no
statistically significant voucher student advantage in reading for any
of the four years and no statistically significant advantage in math
for any of the first three years. (Source: Jay Greene, Paul Peterson,
and Jiangtao Du, The Effectiveness of School Choice in Milwaukee:
A Secondary Analysis of Data from the Program’s Evaluation,
Harvard University, 1996.)
- Princeton University Professor Cecilia Rouse found that students
in Milwaukee’s “P-5” public school program, which used
extra resources to reduce class sizes, outperformed regular public school
students and voucher students in reading, and did as well as voucher
students and better than other public school students in math. (Source:
Cecilia E. Rouse, Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement:
An Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Princeton
University, 1997.)
- A state-sponsored independent evaluation of Cleveland’s voucher
program for the first year, conducted by researchers at Indiana University,
found no significant achievement differences in all subjects between
voucher students and comparable Cleveland public school students. In
the second-year evaluation, there was no achievement difference in math,
English, science and social studies, with a slight advantage for voucher
students in language arts. (Sources: Kim Metcalf, et al, A Comparative
Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program
and Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship Program, Second Year
Report, 1997-98, Indiana University, 1998.)
