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School vouchers and academic performance: results from three randomized field trials
Author(s) -
Howell William G.,
Wolf Patrick J.,
Campbell David E.,
Peterson Paul E.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of policy analysis and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.898
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1520-6688
pISSN - 0276-8739
DOI - 10.1002/pam.10023
Subject(s) - voucher , test (biology) , percentile , ranking (information retrieval) , ethnic group , observational study , randomized controlled trial , psychology , demography , demographic economics , political science , sociology , medicine , economics , statistics , mathematics , law , paleontology , accounting , surgery , machine learning , computer science , biology
This article examines the effects of school vouchers on student test scores in New York, New York, Dayton,Ohio, and Washington, DC. The evaluations in all three cities are designed as randomized field trials. Thefindings, therefore, are not confounded by the self‐selection problems that pervade most observationaldata. After 2 years, African Americans who switched from public to private school gained, relative to theirpublic‐school peers, an average of 6.3 National Percentile Ranking points in the three cities on the IowaTest of Basic Skills. The gains by city were 4.2 points in New York, 6.5 points in Dayton, and 9.2 points inWashington. Effects for African Americans are statistically significant in all three cities. In no city arestatistically significant effects observed for other ethnic groups, after either 1 or 2 years. © 2002 bythe Association for Policy Analysis and Management.