This paper examines the Cleveland Scholarship and Tuition Program (CSTP), a program initiated in 1996 that was the first in the U.S. to offer state-funded scholarships that can be redeemed at both secular and parochial schools. To gather information about the program, a telephone survey of 2,020 CSTP applicants, 1,006 of which did not enroll in…

This paper reports on first-year results for an evaluation of the New York School Choice Scholarships Foundation program, which was designed to provide scholarships for children from low-income families currently attending public schools to transfer to private schools. Families won scholarships through a lottery. Researchers examined data from…

This paper presents first-year results of an evaluation of a Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF) program which provided scholarships enabling low-income families nationwide to send their K-8 children to private schools of their choice. Families won scholarships through a lottery. Telephone surveys of parents/caretakers of children who took advantage…

Evaluated the success of the publicly funded school-voucher program in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) using data for 592 students. The Milwaukee experience suggests that privatization in education may result in efficiency gains. Given a choice between public and private schools, Milwaukee parents chose the option best suited for their children. Discusses…

The voucher intervention sponsored by New York City's School Choice Scholarships Foundation (SCSF) has been a valuable source of information about such programs. It began in 1997, when K-4 public school students were invited to apply to SCSF for a voucher to help defray costs of private school tuition. Over 1,200 of 20,000 applicants were offered…

This report presents an evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship Program (CSP) after two years in operation. The program provided low-income families with scholarships that they could redeem at any participating Cleveland private school. The evaluation of the program involved a survey of two groups of parents in 1998: parents of children in grades…

This paper is a report on the estimated effects on students and families of the offer of a voucher (the "intention-to-treat" effect) and the effects of switching from a public to a private school (the "treatment-on-the-treated" effect). Specifically, the report estimates the impact of voucher programs on student test scores,…

This report presents a fresh analysis of data from an earlier study (Brookings 2002) on the test scores of African American students in a small, targeted voucher program. This new analysis was undertaken in response to an unpublished paper by Krueger and Zhu (Princeton University) disputing some of the findings of the original study. In 1997 some…

Uses Milwaukee's school choice/voucher initiative to illustrate how politically motivated evaluation and compromise legislation can dilute potentially beneficial educational innovations. The initiative's success despite counterproductive legislative tampering and biased evaluation is addressed, along with a discussion of the evaluation's…

In fall 1997, the Washington Scholarship Fund expanded its privately funded school voucher program in Washington, D.C., and in 1998, over 1,000 students were offered scholarships by lottery. This evaluation examined the impact of the first 2 years of the program on students who completed baseline testing and were in grades 1-7 in spring 1998. It…