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  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
Vouchers, Values, and Educational Equity While no strong evidence exists that voucher programs improve student achievement, all parties to the voucher debate at least agree that improving achievement is a desirable goal. But achievement is not the only issue in the debate. People favor or oppose vouchers in part because they hold different social and political values. Professor Peter Cookson (Teacher’s College, Columbia University) calls the battle over school choice a struggle over the "soul" of American public education.^73 Jeffrey Henig sees in the struggle a conflict over the type of society Americans want to call into being.^74 Some observers perceive public schools to have symbolic value as a community institution. In smaller towns, for example, the public high school’s athletic teams are community institutions whose support extends beyond the school’s students and alumni. In addition, the public character of the school, as expressed, for example, in its availability as a place for meetings, local theater groups, or adult-education programs, contributes to the school’s value to the broader community. Private schools may have considerable symbolic value for their students, parents, and alumni, but rarely for others. By increasing the number and enrollment of private schools, while decreasing those of public schools, large-scale voucher programs would diminish the symbolic value of public schools. In so doing, they could reinforce social fragmentation of the American community along ethnic and racial lines. (This possibility is hinted at by the fact that most Hispanics in Milwaukee went to just one Choice school.) Large-scale voucher programs may also have the potential to increase inequality and the stratification of students by family income as well as social background. This concern is supported both by theoretical arguments and by empirical evidence on large-scale school-choice programs. (Programs the size of the one in Milwaukee are too small to have much effect on inequality.) To see how a large-scale voucher program could make school quality and student achievement more unequal, suppose that public schools were replaced by a voucher program.^75If total spending remained the same as in the public school system, the voucher would be less than the amount formerly spent per student in the public schools because students in private schools who formerly received no public support would now receive a share of this money. For the families of students who previously attended a high-quality private school, the voucher would be equivalent to an increase in income. These families would be likely to spend some of that extra income on better schooling. At the other extreme, students with the lowest level of academic achievement -- and whose parents tend to place less priority on education -- would receive a voucher lower than the per-student investment within the public school system. The parents of these students would be unlikely to supplement the voucher amount with their own money. If money strongly predicts school quality, these students would, under a voucher system, attend schools inferior to current public schools. There are two ways to escape the conclusion that vouchers will increase the polarization of educational opportunity. First, if the total investment in public schools increased enough to more than compensate for the spending on students who now attend private school, low-income students might benefit. This seems an unlikely scenario and no current proposal recommends vouchers this large. Second, vouchers might not increase polarization if private schools operated more efficiently than public schools. As we have seen (Box 3), no clear evidence exists that private schools operate more efficiently. Of course, the current public school system stratifies students by family income and educational background. One of the most important means by which this stratification occurs is residential choice. The more affluent, educated, and committed to education seek to live where their children can attend good schools. The children of the poor are then often left behind to struggle in substandard, underfunded schools. In his 1995 book, Private Vouchers, Terry Moe, one of the most prominent voucher advocates, argues that vouchers are a force for greater educational equity because they provide poor students with a choice of schools.^76 In a voucher system, however, families would sort themselves among schools on the basis of income, educational preferences, and knowledge about schooling. Under the current system, families who send their children to public schools sort themselves among residential locations (and, therefore, school districts) on the basis not only of these factors, but also others, such as the cost and quality of housing, distance to work, and availability of recreational opportunities. For this reason, private schools under a large-scale voucher program are likely to be more internally homogenous (with respect to students’ socioeconomic background) than are public schools under the current system. With public schools, some of the poor get a chance to attend the same schools as their middle- and upper-income peers. With large-scale voucher programs, fewer of the poor are likely to have this opportunity. Vouchers would then be a force for educational inequity. Although not inherent in voucher systems, there are additional features of most voucher proposals that would worsen educational inequity. Most voucher proposals propose considerably lower levels of funding than would result from giving students a per capita share of current spending on education. With this funding, children of affluent parents already in private schools could still spend more than they do currently on education. Children of poor parents would have an even smaller amount to spend on their education. Second, most proposals, including the Milwaukee program, in effect allow private schools to exclude some special needs students, because the schools need not provide services on which those students depend. Some proposals, unlike Milwaukee, would allow schools complete authority over whom to admit, and whom to exclude. Terry Moe acknowledges the danger that this poses. He argues that it can be addressed through careful attention to the design of voucher programs.^77 The available empirical evidence supports the contention that vouchers may reduce educational equity. In 1992, the Carnegie Foundation released School Choice.^78Carnegie researchers visited choice programs around the country, surveyed more than 1,000 parents, and reviewed other studies of school choice. Except for Milwaukee’s private voucher program, all of the programs in the Carnegie study were public school choice programs. The Carnegie report concluded that: (1) To the extent that choice programs benefit children at all, they benefit the children of better educated parents, (2) The choice programs require additional money to operate, (3) Choice programs have the potential to widen the gap between rich and poor school districts, and (4) School choice does not necessarily improve student achievement. Bruce Fuller, in a 1995 review of the data available on selected choice programs around the country for the National Conference of State Legislatures, drew conclusions similar to those contained in the Carnegie report.^79 After a review of the research on school choice in three countries (the U.S., Great Britain, and New Zealand), Geoff Whitty finds little evidence to support the contention that the creation of educational markets increases student achievement. He does, however, find that educational markets make existing inequalities in the provision of education worse.^80Carnoy draws a similar conclusion based on an analysis of the effects of school privatization in Chile and other countries.^81 In conclusion, the evidence from Milwaukee and Cleveland reviewed earlier suggests that vouchers have, at best, an uncertain upside. If vouchers could increase educational inequity and social fragmentation, they have a potentially large downside. Continue with the Next Section Box 7: Does Money Matter? School Spending and School Outcomes