Competitive Impacts of Means-Tested Vouchers on Public School Performance: Evidence from Louisiana

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna J. Egalite ◽  
Jonathan N. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Private School ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
First Year ◽  
Competitive Effects ◽  
Scholarship Program ◽  
Sudden Injection

Given the significant growth rate and geographic expansion of private school choice programs over the past two decades, it is important to examine how traditional public schools respond to the sudden injection of competition for students and resources. Although prior studies of this nature have been limited to Florida and Milwaukee, using multiple analytic strategies this paper examines the competitive impacts of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) to determine its achievement impacts on students in affected public schools. Serving 4,954 students in its first year of statewide expansion, this targeted school voucher program provides public funds for low-income students in low-performing public schools to enroll in participating private schools across the state of Louisiana. Using (1) a school fixed effects approach and (2) a regression discontinuity framework to examine the achievement impacts of the LSP on students in affected public schools, this competitive effects analysis reveals neutral to positive impacts that are small in magnitude. Policy implications are discussed.

scholarly journals The long-term effect of competition on public school achievement: Evidence from the Indiana choice scholarship program

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Yusuf Canbolat
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Market Share ◽  
Private School ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
School Achievement ◽  
School Vouchers ◽  
Competitive Effect ◽  
Scholarship Program

Despite a vast literature on school vouchers, less is known about their long-term competitive effects on public schools. The current paper examines the competitive effect of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program, the largest single voucher program in the US, on math and ELA proficiency rates in public schools in the last eight years. Exploiting school vouchers' market share as the primary measure of competition, I use two-way fixed effects regression and event study framework to examine the competitive effect. Results indicate that, although competition has a positive effect in the earlier years, it is detrimental in the long term, suggesting that the program created a “voucher shock” that led to an improvement in the short term. However, in the long term, the proficiency rates in public schools that faced higher competition fell and never increased again. The trend of voucher recipients who have prior public-school attendance revealed that the worsening proficiency rates in the public schools that face higher competition were driven by the departure of relatively high achieving students, suggesting that school vouchers inspire sorting. The results are robust to alternative specifications that use the variation in the interaction between the market share of vouchers and geospatial measures of private school density. 

The Impact of Targeted School Vouchers on Racial Stratification in Louisiana Schools

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna J. Egalite ◽  
Jonathan N. Mills ◽  
Patrick J. Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Low Income ◽  
School Vouchers ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Racial Stratification ◽  
Scholarship Program ◽  
The Impact

The question of how school choice programs affect the racial stratification of schools is highly salient in the field of education policy. We use a student-level panel data set to analyze the impacts of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) on racial stratification in public and private schools. This targeted school voucher program provides funding for low-income, mostly minority students in the lowest-graded public schools to enroll in participating private schools. Our analysis indicates that the vast majority (82%) of LSP transfers have reduced racial stratification in the voucher students’ former public schools. LSP transfers have marginally increased stratification in the participating private schools, however, where just 45% of transfers reduce racial stratification. In those school districts under federal desegregation orders, voucher transfers result in a large reduction in traditional public schools’ racial stratification levels and have no discernible impact on private schools. The results of this analysis provide reliable empirical evidence on whether or not parental choice harms desegregation efforts in Louisiana.

A Look Back: Taking stock of public school choice in Kappan

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-7
Author(s):  
Teresa Preston
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Alternative Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Magnet Schools ◽  
Public School Choice ◽  
Look Back

In this monthly column, Kappan managing editor Teresa Preston explores how the magazine has covered the questions and controversies about school choice. Although many authors across the decades objected to the use of vouchers to pay private school tuition, those same authors lent support to the idea of choice among public schools. Advocates of public school choice have endorsed various models for providing choices, from alternative schools, to magnet schools, to charter schools.

scholarly journals Determinants of School Choice: Evidence from Rural Punjab, Pakistan

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamna Ahmed ◽  
Sahar Amjad Sheikh
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Private School ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
School Quality ◽  
Public Schooling ◽  
Private Schooling ◽  
Research Initiative ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
Perceptions Of School

The objective of this study is to understand why parents in rural areas of Punjab, Pakistan, choose to send their children to private schools when free public schools are available. The study utilizes the Privatization in Education Research Initiative (PERI) school choice dataset compiled by the Lahore School of Economics in collaboration with the Punjab Bureau of Statistics. These data provide rich information on parents’ perception of their child’s school relative to alternative schools he or she could have attended. The findings suggest that parents’ perceptions play an important role in school choice. In particular, their perceptions of school quality and employment opportunities emerge as key determinants of private school choice. Additionally, expenditure on and access to private schooling relative to public schooling as well as the socioeconomic status of the household have a significant impact on parents’ probability of choosing a private school for their child.

scholarly journals School Choice Participation Rates: Which Districts are Pressured?

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongmei Ni ◽  
David Arsen
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
School Effectiveness ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
Educational Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
Improved Performance ◽  
High Concentrations ◽  
Student Transfers

School choice policies are intended to provide students in poorly performing schools the option of transferring to a better school. The associated loss of funding to new competitors is expected, in turn, to benefit students who remain in their assigned schools by spurring improved performance among the educators in them. The prospects for such systemic improvement are greatest if in fact student transfers and the market signals they provide are determined by school effectiveness rather than the social and racial characteristics of a district’s students. To test this proposition, we employ a series of fixed effects regressions to analyze the relative influence of school effectiveness versus student demographic composition on participation rates in Michigan’s charter school and inter-district choice policies. Our results indicate that school effectiveness has no systematic influence on participation rates for either choice policy, while the loss of students to choice options increases significantly in districts serving high concentrations of low-income students. Therefore, Michigan’s school choice policies create financial pressures not on schools that are performing most poorly but rather on those that face the most difficult educational challenges.

scholarly journals School Choice In Rural Georgia: An Empirical Analysis

1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 526-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Keeler ◽  
Warren Kriesel
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Private Education ◽  
Private School ◽  
School Quality ◽  
School Attendance ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
National Level ◽  
Indicator Variable

AbstractPrevious empirical studies of school choice have been at the national level, or have focussed on northeastern states. We estimate the demand for private education in rural Georgia, using proportion of private school attendance as an indicator variable. We find that income, tuition, race and school quality are important choice determinants. The results provide useful information for rural school administrators, and suggest that a tuition tax credit would have to be substantial to cause a significant exodus from public schools.

scholarly journals Competitive Effects of Means-Tested School Vouchers

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Figlio ◽  
Cassandra M. D. Hart
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
School Vouchers ◽  
School Students ◽  
Public School Students ◽  
Competitive Effects ◽  
Voucher Program ◽  
Resource Levels ◽  
Student Composition

We use the introduction of a means-tested voucher program in Florida to examine whether increased competitive pressure on public schools affects students’ test scores. We find greater score improvements in the wake of the program introduction for students attending schools that faced more competitive private school markets prior to the policy announcement, especially those that faced the greatest financial incentives to retain students. These effects suggest modest benefits for public school students from increased competition. The effects are consistent across several geocoded measures of competition and isolate competitive effects from changes in student composition or resource levels in public schools. (JEL H75, I21, I22, I28)

scholarly journals Are Teacher Absences Worth Worrying About in the United States?

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles T. Clotfelter ◽  
Helen F. Ladd ◽  
Jacob L. Vigdor
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
The United States ◽  
Elementary Grades ◽  
School Year ◽  
Teacher Absences ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Income Quartile

Using detailed data from North Carolina, we examine the frequency, incidence, and consequences of teacher absences in public schools as well as the impact of a policy designed to reduce absences. The incidence of teacher absences is regressive: when schools are ranked by the fraction of students receiving free or reduced price lunches, teachers in the lowest income quartile average almost one extra sick day per school year than teachers in the highest income quartile, and schools with persistently high rates of teacher absence were much more likely to serve low-income than high-income students. In regression models incorporating teacher fixed effects, absences are associated with lower student achievement in elementary grades. Finally, we present evidence that the demand for discretionary absences is price elastic. Our estimates suggest that a policy intervention that simultaneously raises teacher base salaries and broadens financial penalties for absences could both raise teachers' expected incomes and lower districts' expected costs.

Early Adopters: Private School Leaders Respond to the Introduction of Targeted School Vouchers

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-151
Author(s):  
Anna J. Egalite ◽  
Lance Fusarelli ◽  
Lacey Seaton ◽  
D. T. Stallings
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Private School ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
School Vouchers ◽  
Low Income Students ◽  
Early Adopters ◽  
The North ◽  
Scholarship Program ◽  
Participation Decisions

The North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program awarded private school vouchers to over 7,000 low-income students in 2017-18, yet only 61% of the state’s private schools registered to participate in the Opportunity Scholarship Program and just over half of schools (54%) actually enrolled voucher recipients. Given that the program is anticipated to grow by $10 million per year for 10 years, private school supply will be an important consideration as student participation rises. Using rich focus group and survey data collected from private school leaders between 2014 and 2017, this analysis probes the participation decisions of private school leaders.

scholarly journals The relationships between selected anthropometric and socio-economic data in schoolchildren from different social strata in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1990 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Gross ◽  
Fernão Dias de Lima ◽  
Cristina Jesus de Freitas ◽  
Ursula Gross
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Private School ◽  
Surveillance System ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Economic Data ◽  
Anthropometric Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
Nutritional Surveillance ◽  
State Schools

The nutritional status according to anthropometric data was assessed in 756 schoolchildren from 5 low-income state schools and in one private school in the same part of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The prevalence of stunting and wasting (cut-off point: <90% ht/age and <80% wt/ht) ranged in the public schools from 6.2 to 15.2% and 3.3 to 24.0%, respectively, whereas the figures for the private school were 2.3 and 3.5%, respectively. Much more obesity was found in the private school (18.0%) than in the state schools (0.8 - 6.2%). Nutritional problems seem to develop more severely in accordance with the increasing age of the children. Therefore it appears advisable to assess schoolchildren within the context of a nutritional surveillance system.

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