How has the Louisiana Scholarship Program Affected students? A Comprehensive Summary of Effects After Three Years

School choice reforms comprise a broad category of policies aimed at improving public education through the introduction of market forces that expand customer choice and competition between schools. Here we summarize our research to date on the effects of a large statewide school voucher initiative, the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP), and draw the following conclusions: • Overall, participating in the LSP had no statistically significant impact on student English Language Arts (ELA) or math scores after using an LSP scholarship for three years. • The subgroup of students who were lower achieving before applying to the program did show significant gains in ELA after three years of scholarship usage. Students applying to lower grades demonstrated significant losses in math. • Students without disabilities were less likely to be identified to receive special education services if they participated in the LSP than if they did not. Students with disabilities were more likely to be de-identified as requiring special education services if they participated in the private school choice program. • The private schools that chose to participate in the LSP were disproportionately Catholic, had low tuitions, had low enrollments, and served a high percentage of minority students. We discuss these findings in the remainder of this brief and in greater detail in the three accompanying technical reports. Combined with prior evidence, these results are informative about the specific design of voucher and other choice policies and about how the effects of choice evolve over time as programs mature

The Effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Student Achievement After Two Years

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) is a statewide initiative offering publicly-funded vouchers to enroll in local private schools to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250 percent of the poverty line. Initially established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. This paper examines the experimental effects of using an LSP scholarship to enroll in a private school on student achievement in the first two years following the program’s expansion. Our results indicate that the use of an LSP scholarship has negatively impacted both ELA and math achievement, although only the latter estimates are statistically significant. Moreover, we observe less negative effect estimates in the second year of the program

How has the Louisiana Scholarship Program Affected Students? A Comprehensive Summary of Effects After Two Years

Louisiana, a state whose educational performance has lagged behind national averages for decades, began its experiment with publicly financed scholarships for students to attend private schools in 2008. The pilot version of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) was expanded statewide with the passage of Act 2 of the 2012 Louisiana state legislative session. Nearly 10,000 students applied to the expanded program in 2012-13, with roughly 5,000 applicants receiving scholarships. The program has continued its rapid expansion every year since then, with nearly 7,500 scholarships awarded in the 2014-15 school year

The Impact of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Racial Segregation in Louisiana Schools

The question of how school choice programs affect the racial stratification of schools is highly salient in the field of education policy. We use a student-level panel data set to analyze the impacts of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) on racial segregation in public and private schools. This targeted school voucher program provides funding for low-income, mostly minority students in the lowest-graded public schools to enroll in participating private schools. Our analysis indicates that the vast majority (82%) of LSP transfers have reduced racial segregation in the voucher students’ former public schools. LSP transfers have marginally increased segregation in the participating private schools, however, where just 45% of transfers reduce racial segregation. In those school districts under federal desegregation orders, voucher transfers result in a large reduction in traditional public schools’ racial segregation levels and have no discernible impact on private schools. The results of this analysis provide reliable empirical evidence that parental choice actually has aided desegregation efforts in Louisiana

The Impact of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Racial Segregation in Louisiana Schools

The question of how school choice programs affect the racial stratification of schools is highly salient in the field of education policy. We use a student-level panel data set to analyze the impacts of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) on racial segregation in public and private schools. This targeted school voucher program provides funding for low-income, mostly minority students in the lowest-graded public schools to enroll in participating private schools. Our analysis indicates that the vast majority (82%) of LSP transfers have reduced racial segregation in the voucher students’ former public schools. LSP transfers have marginally increased segregation in the participating private schools, however, where just 45% of transfers reduce racial segregation. In those school districts under federal desegregation orders, voucher transfers result in a large reduction in traditional public schools’ racial segregation levels and have no discernible impact on private schools. The results of this analysis provide reliable empirical evidence that parental choice actually has aided desegregation efforts in Louisiana

The Effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Student Achievement after Four Years

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly-funded vouchers to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250 percent of the poverty line, allowing them to enroll in participating private schools. Established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. In this study, we estimate the achievement impacts of ever using an LSP voucher to enroll in one’s first-choice private school over the four year period spanning from 2012-13 (Year 1) through 2015-16 (Year 4). In contrast to our previous research, which indicated large initial negative achievement effects of the program that improved after two and three years of participation, the results presented here indicate large negative effects of LSP voucher usage after four years, especially in math. Similar to previous studies, we observe little evidence of differentiation in general effects by gender.However, in contrast to findings presented in our previous studies, African American students are reported to have significantly less negative impacts of voucher usage relative to other students

Predictors of tonsillectomy after previous adenoidectomy for upper airway obstruction [abstract]

One of the main indications for adenotonsillectomy in children is upper airway obstruction, including obstructive sleep apnea. Previous research has suggested an increased risk for requiring subsequent tonsillectomy when adenoidectomy alone is performed for upper airway obstruction. The purpose of this study is to further characterize potential risk factors for subsequent tonsillectomy in pediatric patients undergoing adenoidectomy for upper airway obstruction

The Effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Student Achievement After Three Years

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly-funded vouchers to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250 percent of the poverty line, allowing them to enroll in participating private schools. Established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. This report examines the experimental effects of using an LSP scholarship to enroll in one’s first choice private school on student achievement in the three years following the program’s expansion. Large negative achievement effects in the first year of the program appear to have been followed by improvement in the second and third years. Based on our primary analytic sample, the effects of the LSP on English Language Arts (ELA) are positive and math are negative in Year 3, but neither is statistically significant. These results are partially reflective of declining statistical power and appear to be influenced by the return of students to public schools for whom the program was not working. Subgroup analyses indicate that students with lower ELA scores at baseline realized statistically significant achievement gains in ELA from the program, while students applying to the earlier elementary grades experienced large achievement losses from the program in math

How has the Louisiana Scholarship Program Affected Students? A Comprehensive Summary of Effects after Four Years

School choice has long been a subject of robust debate. Private school vouchers—programs providing public funds for students to attend K-12 private schools—tend to be the most contentious form of school choice. Over the past three years, our research team has released a series of reports examining how the LSP has affected key student and community conditions

Efficacy of Dog Training With and Without Remote Electronic Collars vs. A Focus on Positive Reinforcement

We assessed the efficacy of dog training with and without remote electronic collars compared to training with positive reinforcement. A total of 63 dogs with known off-lead behavioral problems such as poor recall were allocated to one of three training groups (each n = 21), receiving up to 150min of training over 5 days to improve recall and general obedience. The 3 groups were: E-collar—manufacturer-nominated trainers who used electronic stimuli as part of their training program; Control 1—the same trainers following practices they would apply when not using electronic stimuli; and Control 2—independent, professional trainers who focused primarily on positive reinforcement for their training. Data collection focused on dogs’ response to two commands: “Come” (recall to trainer) and “Sit” (place hindquarters on ground). These were the two most common commands used during training, with improving recall being the target behavior for the subject dogs. Measures of training efficacy included number of commands given to elicit the response and response latency. Control 2 achieved significantly better responses to both “Sit” and “Come” commands after a single instruction in the allocated time. These dogs also had shorter response latencies than the E-collar group. There was no significant difference in the proportion of command disobeyed between the three groups, although significantly fewer commands were given to the dogs in Control 2. There was no difference in the number of verbal cues used in each group, but Control 2 used fewer hand and lead signals, and Control 1 made more use of these signals than E-collar group. These findings refute the suggestion that training with an E-collar is either more efficient or results in less disobedience, even in the hands of experienced trainers. In many ways, training with positive reinforcement was found to be more effective at addressing the target behavior as well as general obedience training. This method of training also poses fewer risks to dog welfare and quality of the human-dog relationship. Given these results we suggest that there is no evidence to indicate that E-collar training is necessary, even for its most widely cited indication