School Choice or Best Systems_ What Improves Education_ - Margaret C. Wang [30]
In a randomized field experiment, evaluators found that vouchers considerably increased the probability of a student receiving a private school scholarship (though only half of the private schools accepted vouchers).51 Voucher recipients remained in school for a slightly longer length of time, and fewer of them repeated a grade, as a result of choosing a school that met their satisfaction. Three years after the program began, and controlling for other factors, voucher students scored higher than other students, the equivalent of attaining an extra year of schooling.52
Conclusion
Considering the research reviewed in this chapter as a whole, it may be concluded that public and private education vouchers almost certainly have positive effects on academic achievement by students attending both chosen and nonchosen schools. Claims that vouchers would disadvantage poor and minority children or children with special educational needs, or lead to greater segregation, are unsupported by the research on existing voucher programs.
Studies show that voucher parents choose schools mainly for academic reasons and that they are generally much more satisfied with their schools’ services than are public school parents. Parents also report that voucher schools are safer, more secure environments for their children. Voucher programs in the United States may be too small to provide definitive evidence that universal vouchers would produce the positive outcomes predicted by advocates, but large-scale foreign voucher programs demonstrate considerable success despite the extensive government regulation to which they are subjected.
Appendix: Features of Voucher Programs in Various Nations
A growing body of international research on school voucher programs uncovers significant gains in parent satisfaction, student achievement, and school diversity. With dramatic increases in governmental funding for private schools, families benefit from the widening selection of schools and indicate greater satisfaction with the schools they choose. Student achievement is at least as good, and usually better, in private voucher schools. This research literature also indicates that universal voucher programs do not create social divisiveness. With public funding for schools of choice regardless of family income, student performance increases overall (see Table 3-A1).
Table 3-A1
FEATURES OF VOUCHER PROGRAMS
Sources : David Salisbury and James Tooley,eds. what America Can Learn From School Choic in Other Country(Washington: Cato Institute,2005 ) and Clive R. Belfield and Henry M.Levin, Education Privatization : Causes , Consequences, and Planning Implications (Paris UNESCO/International Institute for Educational Planning , 2002).
4. Private School Effects
Private schools in the United States and in other countries offer another opportunity to measure the effects of school choice. Before the spread of charter schools and voucher programs, comparisons of public and private schools were the most common source of data invoked in debates about school choice. Such comparisons are still instructive. While controlling for parental motivation and other confounding factors is challenging, the number of students attending private schools around the country is typically much larger than the number of students attending charter schools or participating in voucher programs, and students usually remain enrolled for longer periods, which allows any effects to become more clear. Parent-funded private schools are also less regulated than charter schools and schools participating in voucher programs, which allows for a sharper comparison of chosen and unchosen schools.
This chapter reviews research on the effects of private schools on academic achievement, efficiency, racial integration, parental satisfaction, and civic engagement by students. Also included is a review of international data,