Posted by Jonathan Adler:
The Defunded D.C. Voucher Program:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_04_05-2009_04_11.shtml#1238937701
Today's Washington Post [1]reports:
The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, the first federal
initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, was
created by a Republican-led Congress in 2004 to help students from
low-income families. Congress has cut off federal funding after the
2009-10 school year unless lawmakers vote to reauthorize it.
Overall, the study found that students who used the vouchers
received reading scores that placed them nearly four months ahead
of peers who remained in public school. However, as a group,
students who had been in the lowest-performing public schools did
not show those gains. There was no difference in math performance
between the groups. . . .
The study, conducted by the Education Department's research arm,
the Institute of Education Sciences, compared the performance and
attitudes of students with scholarships with those of peers who
were eligible but weren't chosen in a lottery. Parents of students
in the program were more satisfied with their children's new
schools and considered the schools safer, the report found.
Students showed no difference in their level of satisfaction.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040302987.html?hpid=sec-education
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