Educational Vouchers: A Review of the Research   by Alex Molnar   Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation School of Education University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee PO Box 413 Milwaukee WI 53201 414-229-2716   October, 1999     CERAI-99-21

		Educational Vouchers: A Review of the Research  October 1999 CERAI-99-21 Alex Molnar Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee  This document combines excerpts from two reports: "Smaller Classes -- Not Vouchers -- Increase Student Achievement" (Harrisburg, Pa.: Keystone Research Center, March 1998); and "Smaller Classes and Educational Vouchers: A Research Update" (Harrisburg, Pa.: Keystone Research Center, June 1999). Both documents are available on the website of the Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation at http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CERAI
		Table of Contents - Exercept 1 Historical Background Educational Choice Enters the Mainstream The Battle Over Vouchers Today The Milwaukee Parental Choice Voucher Program The Debate Over the Achievement Effect of the Milwaukee Voucher Program Box 3: Public vs. Private Schools Why Different Researchers Reach Different Conclusions The Witte Evaluations Box 4: Sorting through the Conflicting Voucher Results The Greene, Peterson, and Du Evaluation Box 5: When are Significant Results Not So Significant? The Rouse Evaluation Milwaukee’s Private Voucher Program -- PAVE Box 6 - A Case Example of the Relative Cost and Performance of Public and Private Schools The Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program (CSTP) Vouchers, Values, and Educational Equity Box 7: Does Money Matter? School Spending and School Outcomes References					Table of Contents - Exercept 2 The Argument Over Vouchers The Milwaukee Parental Choice Voucher Program The Achievement Effects of the Milwaukee Voucher Program The Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program (CSTP) Official Evaluation Results for CSTP Private Voucher Programs Private School Vouchers (Con't) Vouchers and Educational Equity References
		REFERENCES 1 W. Van Vliet and J. A. Smyth, "A Nineteenth-Century French Proposal to Use School Vouchers," Comparative Education Review 26 (February 1982): 95-103. 2 National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk: The Imperatives for Educational Reform (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1983). 3 Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963). 4 Jeffrey R. Henig, Rethinking School Choice: Limits of the Market Metaphor (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 104. 5 David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974). 6 Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). 7 Allen Graubard, Free the Children: Radical Reform and the Free School Movement (New York: Pantheon, 1972). See also the letter from Herb Kohl to Mario Fantini printed in the appendix to, Mario D. Fantini, Free Schools of Choice (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973). 8 Paul Goodman, The New Reformation: Notes of a Neolithic Conservative (New York: Random House, 1970). 9 Education Vouchers: A Report on Financing Elementary Education by Grants to Parents (Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of Public Policy, 1970), as cited in Richard F. Elmore, Choice in Public Education (Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation, 1986), p. 9. 10 Amy Stuart Wells, Time to Choose: America at the Crossroads of School Choice Policy (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), p. 152. 11 Wells, Time to Choose, p. 174. 12 Charles J. Russo and Michael P. Orsi, "The Supreme Court and the Breachable Wall," Momentum, September 1992, pp. 42 - 45. 13 Thomas W. Lyons, "Parochiaid? Yes!" Educational Leadership, November 1971, pp. 102-104, and Glenn L. Archer, "Parochiaid? No!" Educational Leadership, November 1971, pp. 105-107. See also Grace Graham, "Can the Public School Survive Another Ten Years?" Educational Leadership, May 1970, pp. 800-803. 14 "Justice and Excellence: The Case for Choice in Chapter 1," U.S. Department of Education, November 15, 1985, as cited in Elmore, Choice in Public Education. 15 Henig, Rethinking School Choice. 16 Henig, Rethinking School Choice, chap. 4. 17 Education Commission of the States, "Legislative Activities Involving Open Enrollment (Choice)," Clearinghouse Notes, December 1994. 18 Education Commission of the States, "Legislative Activities Involving Open Enrollment (Choice)," p. 91. 19 Jeffrey R. Henig, Rethinking School Choice, p. 67. 20 David W. Grissmer, Sheila Nataraj Kirby, Mark Berends, and Stephanie Williamson, Student Achievement and the Changing American Family (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1994). 21 Richard Rothstein with Karen Hawley Mills, Where’s the Money Gone? Changes in the Level of Education Spending (Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute, 1995), pp. 1 and 37. For an update for the 1991–96 period which shows a stagnation in spending on regular education and continued increases in special education spending, see Richard Rothstein, Where’s the Money Going? Changes in the Level and Composition of Education Spending, 1991–96 (Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute, 1997). 22 John E. Chubb and Terry Moe, Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools, (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990). 23 Chubb and Moe’s work has drawn strong support and considerable criticism. In their 1995 book, The Case Against School Choice, Kevin J. Smith and Kenneth J. Meier analyze the theoretical claims made, the methodology used, the results reported, and the conclusions drawn by Chubb and Moe. In addition they review data about the performance of choice programs in other countries. Smith and Meier conclude that the available empirical evidence did not support Chubb and Moe’s case for vouchers. See Kevin B. Smith and Kenneth J. Meier, The Case Against School Choice: Politics, Markets, and Fools (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharp, 1995). 24 Stephen Herzenberg and Howard Wial, The State of Working Pennsylvania 1997 (Harrisburg, PA: Keystone Research Center, 1997). 25 166 Wis. 2d, 501, 480 N.W.2d, 460 (1992). 26 John F. Witte, First-Year Report: Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (Madison, WI: The Robert M. La Follette Institute of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991); John F. Witte, Andrea B. Bailey, and Christopher A. Thorn, Second-Year Report: Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (Madison, WI: The Robert M. La Follette Institute of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992); John F. Witte, Andrea B. Bailey, and Christopher A. Thorn, Third-Year Report: Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (Madison, WI.: The Robert La Follette Institute of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1993); John F. Witte, Christopher A. Thorn, Kim M. Pritchard, and Michelle Clairborn, Fourth-Year Report: Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (Madison, WI: The Robert La Follette Institute of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1994); John F. Witte, Troy D. Sterr, Christopher A. Thorn, Fifth-Year Report Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, (Madison, WI: The Robert LaFollette Institute of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, December 1995). 27 Paul E. Peterson, "A Critique of the Witte Evaluation of Milwaukee’s School Choice Program," Occasional Paper 95-2 (Harvard University Center for American Political Studies, 1995). 28 George A. Mitchell, The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (Milwaukee: Wisconsin Policy Research Institute 1992); John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe, Educational Choice: Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Mediocrity in American Education And What Can Be Done About It (Milwaukee: Wisconsin Policy Research Institute 1989). 29 Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau Audit Summary Report 95-3 (Madison, WI.: Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, 1995). 30 Witte, First-Year Report.; Witte, Bailey, and Thorn, Second-Year Report; Witte, Bailey, and Thorn, Third-Year Report; Witte, Thorn, Pritchard, and Clairborn, Fourth-Year Report; Witte, Sterr, and Thorn, Fifth-Year Report. 31 Witte, Sterr, and Thorn, Fifth-Year Report. 32 John F. Witte, "Achievement Effects of The Milwaukee Voucher Program," paper presented at the 1997 American Economics Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, January 4-6, 1997. 33 Jay P. Greene, Paul E. Peterson, and Jiangtao Du with Jeesa Boeger and Curtis L. Frazier, "The Effectiveness of School Choice in Milwaukee: A Secondary Analysis of Data from the Program’s Evaluation," August 14, 1996, Occasional Paper, Program in Education Policy and Governance, Center for American Political Studies, Department of Government, Harvard University; Jay P. Greene, Paul E. Peterson, and Jiangtao Du, "Effectiveness of School Choice: The Milwaukee Experiment," Occasional Paper 97-1, Program in Education Policy and Governance, Center for American Political Studies, Department of Government, Harvard University March,1997. 34 Rouse, "Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement: An Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program," Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming. 35 Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau Audit Summary Report 95-3. 36 Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau Audit Summary Report 95-3. 37 The value of a MPCP voucher went up largely because the state has, since 1995, assumed a larger share of local education costs, leading to a large increase in per-pupil state aid to Milwaukee. 38 Ken Black, Milwaukee Public Schools Senior Budget Analyst, telephone interview December 19, 1997. 39 Brent Staples, "Schoolyard Brawl: The New Politics of Education Casts Blacks in a Starring Role," The New York Times, Section 4A (Education Life), January 4, 1998, p. 49. 40 Greene, Peterson, and Du, "The Effectiveness of School Choice in Milwaukee: A Secondary Analysis of Data from the Program’s Evaluation," p. 6. 41 Witte, Thorn, Pritchard, and Clairborn, Fourth-Year Report. 42 William N. Evans and Robert M. Schwab, "Finishing High School and Starting College: Do CatholicSchools Make a Difference?" Quarterly Journal of Economics 110 (November 1995): 941-74. See also James S. Coleman, Thomas Hoffer, and Sally Kilgore, High School Achievement: Public, Catholic, and Private Schools Compared. (New York: Basic Books, 1982.) 43 Dan D. Goldhaber, "Public and Private High School: Is School Choice an Answer to the Productivity Problem?" Economics of Education Review, pp. 93-109. 44 David N. Figlio and Joe A. Stone, "School Choice and Student Performance: Are Private Schools Really Better?" Madison: Institute for Research on Poverty, Discussion Paper 1141-97, September 1997. 45 Cecilia Elena Rouse, "Schools and Student Achievement: More Evidence from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program," Princeton and NBER, December 1997 (forthcoming, The Economic Policy Review.) 46 As the text indicates, each of the three research teams does other comparisons besides the one listed, in part because they have sometimes borrowed each other’s methods as the debate over vouchers has proceeded. 47 Rouse, "Schools and Student Achievement: More Evidence from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program," p. 11. 48 Witte, Sterr, and Thorn, Fifth-Year Report. 49 Greene, Peterson, and Du, "The Effectiveness of School Choice in Milwaukee: A Secondary Analysis of Data from the Program’s Evaluation," p. 15. 50 In addition to critiquing Witte’s regression analysis for the reason we give in the next, GPD attacked a wide variety of aspects of Witte’s reports. Rather than reviewing each point, the text of the present paper emphasizes the key issues remaining after the dust had settled–and after the researchers had modified their approaches in response to criticism. For the caustic back and forth between Greene, Peterson, and Du and Witte, see, in addition to sources already cited: Paul E. Peterson, "A Critique of the Witte Evaluation of Milwaukee’s School Choice Program," Center for American Political Studies Occasional Paper 95-2, Department of Government, Harvard University, 1995; John F. Witte, "A Reply to Paul Peterson’s ‘A Critique of the Witte Evaluation of Milwaukee’s School Choice Program,’" University of Wisconsin, Department of Political Science, February 10, 1995; Paul E. Peterson, "The Milwaukee School Choice Plan: Ten Comments on the Witte Reply," Center for American Political Studies Occasional Paper 95-3, Department of Government, Harvard University, March 1995; John F. Witte, "Reply to Greene, Peterson, and Du: "The Effectiveness of School Choice in Milwaukee: A Secondary Analysis of Data from the Program’s Evaluation," University of Wisconsin, Department of Political Science, August 23, 1996; and Jay P. Greene and Paul E. Peterson, "Methodological Issues in Evaluation Research: The Milwaukee School Choice Plan," paper prepared for the Program in Education Policy and Governance, Department of Government and Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, August 29, 1996. 51 Greene and Peterson, "Methodological Issues in Evaluation Research," p. 3 and Table 1. 52 Witte, "Achievement Effects of The Milwaukee Voucher Program"; and Rouse, "Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement." pp. 10-11. 53 Bruce Fuller, "It’s Still Too Early to Judge School Vouchers," Letter to the editor The New York Times, May 17, 1997. 54 Greene, Paul E. Peterson, and Jiangtao Du, "Effectiveness of School Choice: The Milwaukee Experiment," Table 3. See also Greene, Peterson, and Du, "The Effectiveness of School Choice in Milwaukee: A Secondary Analysis of Data from the Program’s Evaluation," p. 8 and, p. 19, table 4. 55 Witte, "Achievement Effects of The Milwaukee Voucher Program,." In 1994, Witte had also done his own analysis of students who applied unsuccessfully to Choice schools and found no significant differences in the performance of Choice students and unsuccessful applicants. Witte, Thorn, Pritchard, and Clairborn, Fourth-Year Report, p. 25. 56 Rouse, "Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement," p. 23. 57 Rouse gives an unusually clear explanation of her fixed effects approach in Cecilia Elena Rouse, "Schools and Student Achievement," pp. 8-9 and Figure 1. 58 For her discussion of these, see especially Rouse, "Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement," p. 33 and p. 19. 59 Rouse, "Schools and Student Achievement," p. 17. 60 Terry Moe, ed., Private Vouchers. (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1995), p. 45. 61 Marie Rohde, "Minority Test Scores at Catholic Schools Mirror Lag in City," Milwaukee Journal, August 1, 1991. 62 Ernst-Ulrich Franzen, "Archdiocese Abolishes School System," Milwaukee Sentinel, January 27, 1994. 63 Milwaukee Public Schools Governmental Relations Office, correspondence to the author, December 1 and 6, 1995. 64 Emily Koczela, Timothy J. McElhatton, and Jean B. Tyler, Public and Private School Costs: A Local Analysis (Milwaukee: Public Policy Forum, 1994). 65 Janet R. Beales and Maureen Wahl, "Private Vouchers in Milwaukee: The PAVE Program," in Terry Moe, ed., Private Vouchers, Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1995. 66 Maureen Wahl, First-year Report of the Partners Advancing Values in Education Scholarship Program (Milwaukee: Family Service America, 1993); Maureen Wahl, Second-year Report of the Partners Advancing Values in Education Scholarship Program (Milwaukee: Family Service America, 1994); Maureen Wahl, Third-year Report of the Partners Advancing Values in Education Scholarship Program (Milwaukee: Family Service America, 1995). 67 Sammis B. White, Peter Maier, and Christine Cramer, Fourth-Year Report of the Partners Advancing Values in Education Scholarship Program, (Milwaukee: Urban Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1996). 68 The description of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program is based on documents provided by the Ohio Department of Education, discussions with Francis Rogers of the Ohio Department of Education, and Bert Holt of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program, and Dan Murphy, F. Howard Nelson, Bella Rosenberg, The Cleveland Voucher Program: Who Chooses? Who Gets Chosen? Who Pays?, American Federation of Teachers, 1997. 69 Murphy, Nelson, and Rosenberg, The Cleveland Voucher Program: Who Chooses? Who Gets Chosen? Who Pays? 70 Kim K. Metcalf et al., "A Comparative Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program: Year One, 1996-97,"  (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Center for Evaluation, Indiana University, 1998); Kim K. Metcalf et al., "Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program: Second-Year Report, 1997-98,"  (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Center for Evaluation, Indiana University, 1998). 71 Jay P. Greene, William G. Howell, Paul E. Peterson, An Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship Program, Harvard University, Program on Education Policy and Governance, September 1997. 72 For a discussion of the problems posed by fall-to-spring testing in Chapter I programs see: Robert L. Linn, Stephen B. Dunbar, Delwyn L. Harnish, and C. Nicholas Hastings, "The Validity of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System," in Ernest R. House, Sandra Mathison, James A. Pearsol, Hallie Preskill, ed., Evaluation Studies Review Annual, 7 (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1982). 73 P.W. Cookson, School Choice: The Struggle for the Soul of American Education (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). 74 Henig, Rethinking School Choice. 75 Geoffrey Schneider, Bucknell University Department of Economics, unpublished notes and conversations with Keystone Research Center staff. The argument given in the text draws on Schneider’s analysis but is not identical to it. 76 Moe, ed., Private Vouchers. 77 Moe, ed., Private Vouchers. 78 School Choice (Princeton: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1992). 79 Bruce Fuller, "Who Gains, Who Loses from School Choice: A Research Summary," policy brief, National Conference of State Legislatures, Denver: 1995. 80 Geoff Whitty, "Creating Quasi-Markets in Education: A Review of Recent Research on Parental Choice and School Autonomy in Three Countries," in Michael W. Apple, ed., Review of Research in Education, 22 (Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association, 1997). 81 Martin Carnoy, "Is School Privatization the Answer? Data from the Experience of Other Countries Suggest Not." Education Week, July 12, 1995. 82 Eric A. Hanushek, "The Impact of Differential Expenditures on School Performance," Educational Researcher, 18, (May 1989): 45-65. 83 Larry V. Hedges, Richard D. Laine, and Rob Greenwald, "Does Money Matter? A Meta-Analysis of Studies of the Effects of Differential School Inputs on Student Outcomes," Educational Researcher, 2,3 (April 1994): 5-14. For the continuing back and forth between Hanushek and his critics, see Eric A. Hanushek, "School Resources and Student Performance," in Gary A. Burtless (ed.). Does Money Matter? (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1996); Erik A Hanushek, "Assessing the Effects of School Resources on Student Performance; An Update," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1962 (1997): 141–164; and Robert Greenwald, Larry V. Hedges, and Richard D. Laire, "The Effect of School Resources on Student Achievement," Review of Educational Research, 66 (3) (1996): 391–396. 84 Bruce J. Biddle, "Foolishness, Dangerous Nonsense, and Real Correlates of State Differences in Achievement," Phi Delta Kappan, 79 (September 1997): 9-13. 85 Rothstein, Where’s the Money Gone? Changes in the Level of Education Spending. 86 Bruce J. Biddle, "Foolishness, Dangerous Nonsense, and Real Correlates of State Differences in Achievement," pp. 9-13. 87 Ronald F. Ferguson, "Paying For Public Education: New Evidence On How and Why Money Matters," Harvard Journal on Legislation, 28: 465-498. 88 Harold Wenglinsky, "How Money Matters: The Effect of School District Spending on Academic Achievement," Sociology of Education, (July 1997): 221-237. 89 David N. Figlio and Joe A. Stone, "School Choice and Student Performance," p. 15. Continue with Exercept 2 The Argument over Vouchers