An Evaluation of the effects of DC\u27s voucher program on public school achievement and racial integration after one year

This study evaluates the initial effect Washington D.C.\u27s Opportunity Scholarship Program (OPS) on the academic performance of public schools and its effects on the opportunities District students have to attend integrated schools. OPS is a federally sponsored school voucher program that provides vouchers worth up to $7,500 for an estimated 1,800 to 2,000 students in the District of Columbia. Students can use the scholarships to pay tuition at participating private schools in the District. The pilot program is designed to last for 5 years

The Effect of Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program on Student Achievement in Milwaukee Public Schools

This paper examines evidence on the “systemic effects” of expanding school choice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is home to one of the nation’s largest and longest-running school choice programs. If there are systemic effects from expanding school choice we should be able to see them in Milwaukee. This paper also introduces a novel method for analyzing systemic effects. Taking full advantage of student-level data, we develop a new measure of those effects based on the extent of voucher options that each student has each year. The idea behind this measure is that school systems face greater competitive pressure to serve students well when students have more options to leave. This type of measure might be useful for future analyses of systemic effects. Using this new approach, we find that students fare better academically when they have more options from Milwaukee’s voucher program. The effects are modest in magnitude, but they are robust to multiple specifications of the model

Second Year Evaluation of the Systematic Effects of the DC Voucher Program

While publicly sponsored school voucher programs are primarily intended to impact the lives of those who take advantage of the service, they may also have consequences for the larger community. In particular, voucher programs could affect the performance of public schools by altering their resources and incentives; they could alter the demographics of both public and private schools; they could provide new opportunities for students to attend private schools or simply supplement the behavior of students who would have attended private schools regardless of the program. Regardless of the impact of such programs on the few students who are able to use vouchers, it is important to understand the impact of such programs on the larger community before we can judge the overall wisdom of school choice policies

Investigating the Relationship Between Negative Selection into Online Schooling and Achievement Growth

Program evaluations that measure the effects of online charter schools on student achievement will be biased if they fail to account for unobserved differences between online students and students in the comparison group. There are theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that students who enroll in online schools disproportionately face challenges that are not accounted for in administrative data. This paper investigates some of the negative factors that motivate parents to enroll in online schools. We combine data from an online charter school survey—that asked why parents decided to enroll in online schooling—with three years of achievement and demographic data. We find that students whose parents indicated they selected online schools for negative reasons made statistically significantly lower ELA gains, even after controlling for prior achievement, race, gender, free lunch status, and special education status. We conclude that other observational analyses of online charter schools, such as CREDO (2015), will be biased and unreliable if they fail to properly control for reasons students select those schools

An Evaluation of the Effect of DC’s Voucher Program on Public School Achievement and Racial Integration After One Year

This study evaluates the initial effect of Washing, DC’s Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) on the academic performance of public schools and its effects on the opportunities that District students have to attend integrated schools. The OSP is a federally sponsored school voucher program that provides vouchers worth up to $7,500 for an estimated 1,800 to 2,000 students in the District of Columbia. The authors measure whether a public school’s test-score gains are related to its distance to the nearest voucher-accepting private school or the number of voucher schools within a one-mile radius of a public school. The evaluation finds that the OSP has had no academic effect, positive or negative, on the District’s public schools after its first year. The study also compares rates of racial integration in DC’s public schools and private schools participating in the voucher program. This is part of the first-year evaluation of the OSP. The authors plan to continue evaluating the OSP using a variety of approaches

The Effect of Public and Private Schooling on Anti-Semitism

Most major American Jewish organizations oppose voucher and other school choice programs based in part on the fear that private, mostly religious, schools do not check the development of anti-Semitism as well as do government-operated public schools. To examine whether private and public schools differ in their effect on the emergence of anti-Semitic attitudes in adults later in life, we conducted a large survey of a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States. Subjects were asked to provide details on the type of school they attended each year between 1st and 12th grade, including whether the school was public or private, religious or secular, and whether it was affiliated with a particular religious institution. We also adapted a series of measures used by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to gauge people’s anti-Semitism. We find that the more people attended private school when they were younger, the more favorable their attitudes toward Jews. This finding holds even after controlling for a variety of background characteristics, including age, gender, race, childhood family religion, childhood economic circumstances, mother and father’s education, being raised by two parents, and being born in the United States. The reduction in anti-Semitism associated with private schooling is roughly as large as that produced by having parents who are college educated rather than high school dropouts. The benefit of attending private school on reducing anti-Semitism is concentrated among religiously affiliated private schools. Secular private schools are similar to secular public schools in the level of anti-Semitism among their former students. We therefore have some reason to believe that religious, mostly Christian, institutions are playing an important role in restraining anti-Semitism. The overall picture on American anti-Semitism is more worrisome than earlier research by the ADL suggests. The ADL measure of anti-Semitism asks respondents to agree or disagree with a series of 11 anti-Semitic statements. But the ADL survey failed to offer subjects neutral response options, like “don’t know” or “no opinion.” In our study, we added those options and discovered that between one-third and one-half of the subjects switched to a neutral answer. A large portion of people who the ADL would have coded as not anti-Semitic are in fact ignorant or indifferent when confronted with anti-Semitic stereotypes. Although the level of anti-Semitism uncovered in our survey remains relatively low, the situation is more concerning than earlier research would lead us to believe. If we wish to reduce anti-Semitism, major Jewish organizations may wish to reconsider their historic opposition to vouchers and other private school choice programs. Rather than posing a threat, private, especially religious, schools appear to help restrict the development of anti-Semitism

Private Schools and the Public Good: The Effect of Private Education on Political Participation and Tolerance in the Texas Poll

Private Schools make an undeniable contribution to the public good. Nevertheless, many critics argue that public schools do a better job of instilling civic values in students. This article examines the effect of public and private education on political participation and tolerance and demonstrates that private schools excel in promoting civic values

Education and Anti-Semitism

Many people believe that intolerance, in general, and anti-Semitism, in particular, are a function of ignorance, and the solution is education. We see evidence of this whenever concerns about intolerance or anti-Semitism become more salient. Proposed solutions frequently feature improved Holocaust education or expanded diversity, equity, and inclusion training. As two religious leaders recently urged, “The only thing that will truly halt the rise of anti-Semitism in America is education” (Stanton & Marcus, 2019). Profiles of anti-Semites tend to feature rural whites or urban minorities, but they are almost always from low-educational backgrounds. Well-educated people tend to feel secure in their higher social class circles and imagine that the dangers of inter-group hatred are concentrated elsewhere

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program’s Effect on School Integration

In this paper, we estimate the effect of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP, or the Milwaukee voucher program) on integration in public and private schools

An Experimental Evaluation of Arts Field Trips

This paper presents results of a multi-visit, longitudinal experiment on the academic and social-emotional effects of arts-based field trips. We randomly assign fourth and fifth grade students to receive arts-based field trips throughout the school year or to serve as a control. Treatment students express greater tolerance for people with different opinions and a desire to consume arts. Additionally, treatment students have fewer behavioral infractions, attend school more frequently, score higher on their end-of-grade exams, and receive higher course grades. Effects are strongest when students enter middle school. We find no effect on students’ desire to participate in the arts, empathy, or social perspective taking