A pervasive issue in the school choice literature is whether schools of choice cream skim students by enrolling high-achieving, less-challenging, or less-costly students. Similarly, schools of choice may "push out" low-achieving, more-challenging, or more-costly students. Using longitudinal student-level data from Indiana, we created…

Washington, DC's Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), the only federally funded school voucher program in the United States, has provided private school scholarships to low-income students in DC since 2004. From its inception, the program has received significant attention in national debates and has been the subject of rigorous evaluations…

Vocational education and training provision for young people is a crucial but often maligned part of the wider education sector. A common criticism, and motivation for numerous reforms across countries where training is predominantly classroom-based, is that too much training is low quality and unrelated to skill needs. This article examines the…

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly funded vouchers to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250% of the poverty line, allowing them to enroll in participating private schools. Initially established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. This article…

This article considers the impact of a high-stakes testing and reporting requirement on students using publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools. We describe how such a policy was implemented during the course of a previously authorized multi-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, which provided us with data on voucher…

This study examines public school characteristics, and public and private school market characteristics, associated with participation among elementary-aged students in a means-tested school voucher program in Florida. Participants are more likely than eligible nonparticipants to come from disadvantaged public schools on multiple dimensions. On…

Few school choice evaluations consider students who leave such programs, and fewer still consider the effects of leaving these programs as policy-relevant outcomes. Using a representative sample of students from the citywide voucher program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we analyze more than 1,000 students who leave the program during a 4-year period.…

In this article the authors analyze the effect of private voucher education on student academic performance using new data on Chilean students and a novel identification strategy. Most schools in Chile provide either primary or secondary education. The authors analyze the effect of private voucher education on students who are forced to enroll at…

The authors expand on research evaluating public school response to school choice policies by considering the particular influence of voucher programs for disabled students--a growing type of choice program that may have different implications for public school systems from those of more conventional choice programs. The authors provide a…

Evaluating the impacts of public school funding on student achievement has been an important objective for informing education policymaking but fraught with data and methodological limitations. Findings from prior research have been mixed at best, leaving policymakers with little advice about the benefits of allocating public resources to schools…

Describes a comprehensive evaluative framework that draws on a larger range of goals that have been posed for education in a democratic and free society. Tradeoffs are made among criteria that include: (1) freedom of choice; (2) productive efficiency; (3) equity; and (4) social cohesion. (SLD)

Summarizes the results of the first five years of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, which allowed students to attend private schools with public vouchers. Identifies positive and negative aspects of the program, showing how the school quality and outcomes vary. (SLD)

Evidence suggests: (1) a negative relationship exists between some educational outcomes and school size; (2) the minimum efficient sizes of elementary and high schools are about 300 and 500, respectively; and (3) schools will tend to be smaller and more efficient under voucher systems than under public systems. (RL)

This article discusses the recent politics of public proposals to aid private schools through tuition tax credits or education vouchers. Analysis of voter opinion polls, voter behavior, fizzled initiatives, and attempted federal voucher experiment indicates only changes in the political landscape will bring success to such measures. (BS)

The initial financial outcomes of the "voucher plan" applied to the nonpublic schools in British Columbia are assessed. The schools are then described and a summary of the methods of financing both public and nonpublic schools is offered. Impacts of aid on parents, students, taxpayers, and the government are discussed. (Author/PN)