Social Policy Commons^™

Evaluation Of The Dc Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After Three Years, Patrick J. Wolf, Babette Gutmann, Michael Puma, Brian Kisida, Lou Rizzo, Nada Eissa, Marsha Silverberg

School Choice Demonstration Project

he District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003, passed by Congress in January 2004, established the first federally funded, private school voucher program in the United States. As part of this legislation, Congress mandated a rigorous evaluation of the impacts of the Program, now called the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). This report presents findings from the evaluation of the impacts 3 years after families who applied were given the option to move from a public school to a participating private school of their choice.

The Mpcp Longitudinal Educational Growth Study Second Year Report, John F. Witte, Patrick J. Wolf, Joshua M. Cowen, David J. Fleming, Juanita Lucas-Mclean

School Choice Demonstration Project

This is the second year report in a five-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). This program, which began in 1990, provides government-funded vouchers for low-income children to attend private schools in the City of Milwaukee. The maximum voucher amount in 2007-08 was $6,607, and approximately 20,000 children use a voucher to attend either secular or religious private schools. The MPCP is the oldest and largest urban educational voucher program in the United States. This evaluation was authorized by Wisconsin Act 125 enacted in 2005.

Milwaukee Longitudinal School Choice Evaluation: Annual School Testing Summary Report 2007-08, Nathan L. Gray, Patrick J. Wolf, Laura I. Jensen

School Choice Demonstration Project

With the passage of the 2005 Wisconsin Act 125, private schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) are now required to administer a nationally normed standardized test annually in reading, mathematics, and science to their MPCP (a.k.a. “Choice”) students enrolled in the 4th, 8th, and 10th grades. The law further directs Choice schools to submit copies of the scores from those tests to the School Choice Demonstration Project for processing and reporting to the Legislative Audit Bureau. During the 2007-08 school year, MPCP schools administered either nationally normed tests, such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, or …

Promoting Positive Outcomes For Healthy Youth Development: Utilizing Social Capital Theory, Julie Anne Laser, George Stuart Leibowitz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article discusses the central tenets of the theories of social capital, which include exchanges, trust, obligation, bonding, bridging, and issues concerning the marginalization of certain groups. Included is an exploration of the limitations of the approaches of the key theorists, followed by the presentation of a theoretical framework and model of the development of social capital among youth. Additionally, the article discusses the relevancy of social capital for social work practice.

Family Reflections On The District Of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program: Final Summary Report, Thomas Stewart, Patrick J. Wolf, Stephen Q. Cornman, Kenann Mckenzie-Thompson, Jonathan Butcher

School Choice Demonstration Project

During the spring of 2004, the first federally funded voucher program – the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) - was established. The School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) recognized that publicly-funded school vouchers represent a relatively new and unstudied approach to school choice and education reform. To address this need, the SCDP requested and received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to capture the “Parent and Student Voices on the OSP.” A total of 110 families, representing 180 students, that applied during the first two years of the Program volunteered to participate in this study. As the last …

Child Labor In Latin America: Poverty As Cause And Effect, Michaelle Tauson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Throughout much of the developing world, children make up an alarming portion of the workforce. These children are robbed of their childhood in order to provide economic supplementation to their families. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), 5.7 million children in Latin America participate in the regional workforce (2006). It is a common misconception that children, who do not participate in the formal workforce, are not child laborers. However, the ILO defines child labor as any work that is detrimental to a child’s well-being or interferes with a child’s education. Due to the many categories and classifications of child …

Exploring Early Childhood Education And Care Policy In Ireland: Critical Discourse Analysis As A Methodological Tool, Rachel Kiersey

Conference Papers

The Irish government have invested considerably in the broad early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector over the last decade. However, a distinction persists within Irish policy between childcare and early education, both structurally and conceptually. Early education frequently refers to intervention based pre-school services; conversely childcare frequently refers to the broad spectrum of care services for 0-12 year olds, from family based child care through to centre-based provision (Hayes & Bradley, 2006; NESF, 2005; OECD, 2004). As a result of this, ‘early childhood services in Ireland are fractured across the welfare (childcare) and educational (early education) domains and … …

Youth Migration And Poverty In Sub-Saharan Africa: Empowering The Rural Youth, Charlotte Min-Harris

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sangaré, a poor young farmer from a village in southern Mali, leaves his wife and three children to find stable employment in the capital city of Bamako. What he finds is an unrewarding reality that leads him from small job to small job, only earning about US 22 cents per day. These jobs range from selling sunglasses, to shining shoes, to driving a rickshaw. Unfortunately, his income has not proved enough to provide for his family, as his aunt has since adopted his daughter, and his children cannot attend school. The inability to find stable employment in Bamako has forced …

Evaluation Of The Dc Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After Two Years, Patrick J. Wolf, Babette Gutmann, Michael Puma, Brian Kisida, Lou Rizzo, Nada Eissa, Marsha Silverberg

School Choice Demonstration Project

The District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003, passed by the Congress in January 2004, established the first federally funded, private school voucher program in the United States. As part of this legislation, the Congress mandated a rigorous evaluation of the impacts of the Program, now called the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). This report presents findings from the evaluation on the impacts 2 years after families who applied were given the option to move from a public school to a participating private school of their choice.

The Muzzled Dog That Didn’T Bark: Charters And The Behavioral Response Of D.C. Public Schools, Margaret D. Sullivan, Dean B. Campbell, Brian Kisida

School Choice Demonstration Project

As of the 2006-2007 school year, 19,733 students attended charter schools in the District of Columbia, representing over a quarter of the District’s total public school student population and one of the largest charter school markets in the country.1 It is under such circumstances, some suggest, that choice will spur competition, ultimately leading to the improvement of public education. Yet, surprisingly little research has evaluated the behavioral response of public schools in D.C. to this source of competition. Most research to date on school choice in D.C. and elsewhere focuses on the largely positive “participant effects” that school choice programs …

Predicting Attitude Toward Sex Education In Public Schools, Sarah A. Gibson

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the teen pregnancy rate rose by 3% between 2005 and 2006, presenting the first increase since 1991. These findings are troubling in light of the consequences of teen pregnancy to teen mothers, their children, and society in general. Many commentators suggest that one method of reducing the rate of teen pregnancies is through sex education programs, particularly in the public school system. However, despite the fact that discussions of sex education in public school have been present since the 1920s, polls indicate that there is still a portion of the public that …

Milwaukee Longitudinal School Choice Evaluation: Annual School Testing Summary Report, Nathan L. Gray, Patrick J. Wolf, Laura I. Jensen

School Choice Demonstration Project

With the passage of 2005 Wisconsin Act 125, private schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) are now required to administer a nationally normed standardized test annually in reading, mathematics, and science to their MPCP (a.k.a. “Choice”) students enrolled in the 4th, 8th, and 10th grades. The law further directs Choice schools to submit copies of the scores from those tests to the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) for processing and reporting to the Legislative Audit Bureau. During the 2006-07 school year, MPCP schools administered either nationally normed tests, such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, or …

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: Baseline Descriptive Report On Participating Schools, Brian Kisida, Laura I. Jensen, James C. Rahn, Patrick J. Wolf

School Choice Demonstration Project

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) began as the nation’s first urban school voucher initiative in the fall of 1990. Initially, seven secular schools were authorized to enroll the 341 students who first participated in the program. By the 2006-07 academic year, a total of 17,749 voucher students were attending one of the 122 private secular and religious schools that participated in the MPCP or “Choice” program for the entire year.

The Comprehensive Longitudinal Evaluation Of The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: Summary Of Baseline Reports, Patrick J. Wolf

School Choice Demonstration Project

The MPCP was established in 1990 as the first urban education reform in the U.S. built around the idea of permitting parents to enroll their children in private schools of their choosing at government expense. In its first year of operation, the MPCP enrolled 341 students in the seven secular private schools participating in the program. The MPCP remained a small pilot program throughout the period of Witte’s government-authorized evaluation of 1990-95 (figure 1). Although Wisconsin lawmakers created the conditions for program expansion in 1995 – raising the enrollment cap from 1.5 to 15 percent of K-12 students in the …

Mpcp Longitudinal Educational Growth Study Baseline Report, John F. Witte, Patrick J. Wolf, Joshua M. Cowen, David J. Fleming, Juanita Lucas-Mclean

School Choice Demonstration Project

This report focuses on the initial design, implementation and baseline results of the five-year Longitudinal Educational Growth Study (LEGS) of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) being conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP). The LEGS will be the first evaluation of the participant effects of the MPCP using student-level data since the initial pilot program expanded dramatically in 1995. Included in this initial report are baseline descriptions of achievement tests for a representative sample of MPCP students in grades 3 through 9, as well as outcomes for comparable samples of students in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). Also included …

The Fiscal Impact Of The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program In Milwaukee And Wisconsin, 1993-2008, Robert M. Costrell

School Choice Demonstration Project

Throughout the history of publicly-funded voucher programs – enacted and proposed – the impact on taxpayers has been a recurring issue. As the nation’s longest-running program, the Milwaukee Parent Choice Program (MPCP) provides an important case study. The fiscal impact of Milwaukee’s program has evolved in very significant ways over its 18-year history, both in size, as the program grew, and in its allocation among different groups of taxpayers – Milwaukee property taxpayers, non-Milwaukee property taxpayers, and Wisconsin state taxpayers. This report closely examines the features of the MPCP funding formula, and its interaction with the state’s regular district funding …

Satisfied, Optimistic, Yet Concerned: Parent Voices On The Third Year Of The Dc Opportunity Scholarship Program, Thomas Stewart, Patrick J. Wolf, Stephen Q. Cornman, Kenann Mckenzie-Thompson

School Choice Demonstration Project

On January 23, 2004, President Bush signed the DC School Choice Incentive Act into law. This landmark piece of legislation included $14 million in funding for what would become the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). The OSP is the first federally-funded K-12 scholarship program in the country and was designed to provide approximately 1,700 children from low income families with tuition scholarships worth up to $7,500. The scholarships cover the costs of attending nonpublic schools within the District of Columbia that agreed to participate in the Program. In December of 2006, Congress amended the DC School Choice Incentive Act to …

Cracking Silent Codes: Critical Race Theory And Education Organizing, Celina Su

Publications and Research

Critical race theory (CRT) has moved beyond legal scholarship to critique the ways in which “colorblind” laws and policies perpetuate existing racial inequalities in education policy. While criticisms of CRT have focused on the pessimism and lack of remedies presented, CRT scholars have begun to address issues of praxis. Specifically, communities of color must challenge the dominant narratives of mainstream institutions with alternative visions of pedagogy and school reform, and community organizing plays an important role in helping communities of color to articulate these alternative counter-narratives. Yet, many in education organizing disagree with CRT's critique of colorblindness. Drawing on five …

Nevada's Textbook Adoption Process: The State Perspective, Mitch Bishop, Katie Bliven, Scott Hess

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The process in Nevada used to select textbooks, the main tools for classroom instruction, is a complex web of various stakeholders and interactions. Ensuring that quality textbooks get into the hands of Nevada's teachers and students is the goal of the selection process. The main impediments affecting the selection process may be found in the structure of the process and how the stakeholders interact. In most cases, these interactions and responsibilities are dictated by state law and were established gradually over several years. While the current process functions to place textbooks in schools, it also shows great potential for improvement …

Nevada's Textbook Adoption Policy: The Role And Influence Of Parents And Interest Groups, Brady Dehn, David Hood, Barry Michaels, Harry Williams

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The textbook adoption process in the State of Nevada has its share of flaws, bureaucracy red tape, and "legal E's" however; its intentions are meant to benefit all instructors and students in the state. Textbooks are as integral to education as school buildings and teachers, and they should be part of the free, public education provided by the state and school districts (New Sentinel Editorial, 2006). In the complexity of this process, legislators have deemed it important to have parents involved to assist with providing appropriate material for students. What appears to be justifiable and logical thinking has created basic …

Second Year Evaluation Of The Systematic Effects Of The Dc Voucher Program, Marcus A. Winters, Jay P. Greene

School Choice Demonstration Project

While publicly sponsored school voucher programs are primarily intended to impact the lives of those who take advantage of the service, they may also have consequences for the larger community. In particular, voucher programs could affect the performance of public schools by altering their resources and incentives; they could alter the demographics of both public and private schools; they could provide new opportunities for students to attend private schools or simply supplement the behavior of students who would have attended private schools regardless of the program. Regardless of the impact of such programs on the few students who are able …

Middle Class Star, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Evaluation Of The Dc Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After One Year, Patrick J. Wolf, Babette Gutmann, Michael Puma, Lou Rizzo, Nada Eissa, Marsha Silverberg

School Choice Demonstration Project

School choice remains an important part of the national discussion on education reform strategies and their benefits. While a variety of policies encourage parents’ selection of schools for their children―for example, charter schools, magnet schools, and district open enrollment―scholarships that allow students to attend a private school have received the most attention. The U.S. Congress’ passage of the District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003 in January 2004 provided a unique opportunity not only to implement a system of private school choice for low-income students in the District, but also to rigorously assess the effects of the Program …

The Evolution Of School Choice Consumers: Parent And Student Voices On The Second Year Of The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, Stephen Q. Cornman, Thomas Stewart, Patrick J. Wolf

School Choice Demonstration Project

In the 50 years since economist Milton Friedman published "The Role of Government in Education"1 scholars and policy makers have been debating how parental choice through market mechanisms can and does operate in education. Market "optimists" argue that education is a service that can be produced under a variety of arrangements and that parents are natural education consumers.2 Market "pessimists" argue that education is a public good that should be produced in government-run schools, and that school choice programs suffer "market failure" because only advantaged families will have the resources and experience to choose effectively.3 These academic debates continue to …

Paths To Quality: A Child Care Quality Rating System For Indiana. What Is It's Scientific Basis?, James Elicker

Center for Families Publications

Paths to QUALITY is Indiana’s new statewide child care quality rating system (QRS), first implemented in 2008. The main components of most state QRS programs are: 1) a set of quality standards that apply to home-based and center-based child care; 2) a process for objectively assessing child care quality and maintaining accountability; 3) a system of training and technical assistance to help child care providers improve quality; 4) incentives to encourage providers to reach higher levels of quality; and 5) public information to inform parents about what the QRS is and how to use it when they make child care …

The Flood: Political Economy And Disaster, Mari J. Matsuda

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As summer faded to fall in 2005, a hurricane hit New Orleans, a city so unique in its history that it has more history than many American cities. It was nonetheless an American city in these telling parameters: a city of luxury alongside squalor, two-thirds Black, one-fourth poor, with the gap between its rich and poor growing at a gallop as the waters of lake and river lapped gently along aging, grass-covered levees.

Freeze the frame before the waters rise, and what do you see? A devastated public school system, where Black children are labeled “failing,” along with their schools. …

Who Chooses, Who Uses? Initial Evidence From The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, Patrick J. Wolf, Nada Eissa, Babette Gutmann

School Choice Demonstration Project

The federal government recently enacted its first school voucher program as a pilot project in the District of Columbia. To be eligible, students need to be entering grades K-12 and have a family income at or below 185 percent of the poverty level. Although a rigorous analysis of the Opportunity Scholarship Program’s impact on student achievement and other outcomes remains a prospect for the future, at this early point initial data exists regarding the families that are applying for the program and the students that are using and not using the voucher when offered. Here we present a preliminary analysis …

Evaluation Of The Dc Opportunity Scholarship Program: Second Year Report On Participation, Patrick J. Wolf, Babette Gutmann, Michael Puma, Marsha Silverberg

School Choice Demonstration Project

By fall 2005, the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), the first federally funded voucher program in the United States, was in its second year serving low-income students in the nation’s capital. More than 5,800 students have applied to the Program over the 2 years, and about 2,300 of them—eligible public school students who participated in a lottery to determine scholarship award—are the subject of a rigorous impact evaluation mandated by the Program statute. While the most important questions for the evaluation are about the Program’s effectiveness in improving student outcomes, data are still being collected for that analysis and will …

An Evaluation Of The Effects Of Dc's Voucher Program On Public School Achievement And Racial Integration After One Year, Jay P. Greene, Marcus A. Winters

School Choice Demonstration Project

This study evaluates the initial effect Washington D.C.'s Opportunity Scholarship Program (OPS) on the academic performance of public schools and its effects on the opportunities District students have to attend integrated schools. OPS is a federally sponsored school voucher program that provides vouchers worth up to $7,500 for an estimated 1,800 to 2,000 students in the District of Columbia. Students can use the scholarships to pay tuition at participating private schools in the District. The pilot program is designed to last for 5 years.

Parent And Student Voices On The First Year Of The Dc Opportunity Scholarship Program, Thomas Stewart, Patrick J. Wolf, Stephen Q. Cornman

School Choice Demonstration Project

In the 50 years since economist Milton Friedman published “The Role of Government in Education” scholars and policy makers have been debating how parental choice through market mechanisms can and does operate in education. Market “optimists” argue that education is a service that can be produced under a variety of arrangements and that parents are natural education consumers. Market “pessimists” argue that education is a public good that should be produced in government-run schools, and that school choice programs suffer “market failure” because only advantaged families will have the resources and experience to choose effectively.