How Has the Louisiana Scholarship Program Affected Students? A Comprehensive Summary of Effects after Three Years

School choice reforms com­prise a broad cat­e­go­ry of poli­cies aimed at improv­ing pub­lic edu­ca­tion through the intro­duc­tion of mar­ket forces that expand cus­tomer choice and com­pe­ti­tion between schools. Here, we sum­ma­rize our research to date on the effects of a large statewide school vouch­er ini­tia­tive, the Louisiana Schol­ar­ship Pro­gram (LSP), and draw the fol­low­ing con­clu­sions: Over­all, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the LSP had no sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant impact on stu­dent Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts (ELA) or math scores after using an LSP schol­ar­ship for three years. The sub­group of stu­dents who were low­er achiev­ing before apply­ing to the pro­gram did show sig­nif­i­cant gains in ELA after three years of schol­ar­ship usage. Stu­dents apply­ing to low­er grades demon­strat­ed sig­nif­i­cant loss­es in math. Stu­dents with­out dis­abil­i­ties were less like­ly to be iden­ti­fied to receive spe­cial edu­ca­tion ser­vices if they par­tic­i­pat­ed in the LSP than if they did not. Stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties were more like­ly to be de-iden­ti­fied as requir­ing spe­cial edu­ca­tion ser­vices if they par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pri­vate school choice pro­gram. The pri­vate schools that chose to par­tic­i­pate in the LSP were dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly Catholic, had low tuitions, had low enroll­ments, and served a high per­cent­age of minor­i­ty stu­dents. We dis­cuss these find­ings in the brief and in greater detail in the three accom­pa­ny­ing tech­ni­cal reports that ana­lyze the program’s impact on stu­dent achieve­ment, stu­dents’ iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to receive spe­cial edu­ca­tion ser­vices, and school par­tic­i­pa­tion. Com­bined with pri­or evi­dence, these results are infor­ma­tive about the spe­cif­ic design of vouch­er and oth­er choice poli­cies and about how the effects of choice evolve over time as pro­grams mature. The Effects of the Louisiana Schol­ar­ship Pro­gram on Stu­dent Achieve­ment after Three Years Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion in the Louisiana Schol­ar­ship Program * Sup­ply­ing Choice: An Analy­sis of School Par­tic­i­pa­tion in Vouch­er Pro­grams in D.C., Indi­ana, and Louisiana Click [here](http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/105178136) to watch the video from our release event at the Urban Insti­tute in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Related Publications

The Effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Student Achievement after Three Years

Jun 26, 2017 | by Jonathan N. Mills, Patrick J. Wolf

Supplying Choice: An Analysis of School Participation in Voucher Programs in D.C., Indiana, and Louisiana

Jun 26, 2017 | by Yujie Sude, Corey A. DeAngelis, Patrick J. Wolf

Special Education Identification in the Louisiana Scholarship Program

Jun 26, 2017 | by Sivan Tuchman, Patrick J. Wolf