Working Papers

Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS), I examine ethnic and racial patterns of private school attendance. I find that at both the 8th and 10th grade levels, blacks and Hispanics are substantially less likely to attend private schools than are whites. I also find evidence that racial sorting between the private and public school systems is partly due to preferences over the racial composition of schools. In particular, white and Hispanic students enroll in private schools in response to large concentrations of black students, although the underlying causes are unknown. I also examine whether ethnic and racial income disparities contribute to the large differences in private school attendance rates. I find that lower levels of income among black and Hispanic families contribute substantially to the under-representation of these two groups in the private school system. My estimates indicate that racial disparities in income levels explain 34.9 to 56.7 percent of the white/black gap in the private school attendance rate and 49.7 to 57.5 percent of the white/Hispanic gap in the private school rate. Finally, I find that whites attend private schools that are less integrated than public schools, and blacks and Hispanics attend private schools that are slightly more integrated than public schools.

This paper estimates a general equilibrium model of school quality and household residential and school choice for economies with multiple public school districts and private (religious and non-sectarian) schools. The estimates, obtained through full-solution methods, are used to simulate two large-scale private school voucher programs in the Chicago metropolitan area: universal vouchers and vouchers restricted to non-sectarian schools. In the simulations, both programs increase private school enrollment and affect household residential choice. However, under non-sectarian vouchers private school enrollment expands less than under universal vouchers and religious enrollment declines for large vouchers. Fewer households benefit from non-sectarian vouchers.

This paper estimates the impact of private education on low-income students in Chile . We attempt to reduce selection bias by using reduced-tuition paying, low income students in private schools as the treatment group, based on our finding that these students were, to some extent, randomly selected out of the public school control group. Propensity score matching is then used to calculate the difference in academic achievement of students in the treatment group versus their counterpart in the control group. Our results reveal that students in private voucher schools with tuition score slightly higher than students in public schools. The difference in standardized test scores is approximately 8 points, a test score gain of almost 0.15 standard deviations.

This paper examines who is likely to gain and who is likely to lose under a universal voucher program. Following Epple and Romano (1998, 2003), and Nechyba (2000, 2003a), we focus on the idea that gains and losses under a universal voucher depend on two effects: changes in peer group composition and changes in housing values. We show that the direction and magnitude of each of these effects hinges critically on market structure, i.e., the amount of school choice that already exists in the public sector. In markets with little or no Tiebout choice, potential changes in peer group composition create an incentive for high-socioeconomic (SES) households to vote for the voucher and for low-SES households to vote against the voucher. In contrast, in markets with significant Tiebout choice, potential changes in housing values create an incentive for high-SES households to vote against the voucher and for low-SES households to vote for the voucher. Using data on vote outcomes from California's 2000 voucher initiative, we find evidence consistent with those predictions.

This paper examines the academic achievement effects of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program (CSTP), within the context of existing research on education vouchers. Extant evidence on the demand for private schooling shows religion, race, and family education levels are the most important factors. Extant evidence on school supply shows reasonable supply elasticity from the religious sector and positive (but small) competitive pressures. However, voucher programs show very modest gains in achievement for recipients; and studies highlight the many potential biases when identifying the treatment impacts of vouchers. Turning to the Cleveland program, we find a number of practical similarities between the CSTP and other voucher programs in terms of demand and supply. Overall, we find no academic advantages for voucher users; in fact, users appear to perform slightly worse in math. These results do not vary according to: adjustments for prior ability; intention-to-treat versus treatment effects; and dosage differences. Contrary to claims for other voucher programs, the CSTP is not differentially effective for African American students.

Critics of school choice argue that cream-skimming will worsen outcomes for those left behind in public schools, a dynamic that relies on a substantial degree of within-school heterogeneity. Since "high quality" families may have already sorted themselves, or may represent a small fraction of the total, this paper will examine whether existing within school heterogeneity leaves any scope for cream-skimming to operate. The first empirical section shows that the assumptions made by simulation studies over estimate within school heterogeneity by at least 20% to 40%, thus initiating the cream-skimming effect. The second empirical section asks, “given the current level of within-school heterogeneity, how strong would peer effects have to be to significantly worsen outcomes for those left behind?". In order for cream skimming to lower math test scores by a decile, the peer effect would have to be larger than the effect of converting both parents from college graduates to high-school dropouts. In order for cream skimming to substantially worsen dropout rates or college attendance rates, the peer effect would have to be two to three times larger than the strongest estimated predictor of these outcomes. The required peer effects would be smaller, but still unreasonably large, if family types started from a uniform distribution. These results indicate that current levels of within school heterogeneity are so low that peer effects would have to be unrealistically strong to give cream skimming any bite.

The very small literature explaining (1) how citizens have voted in two California voucher referenda, (2) how legislators have voted on voucher bills in the State of Florida and the US Congress, and (3) the variation across states in charter school provisions is summarized. New empirical evidence documenting the cross-state variation in the success of voucher referenda and voucher bills is examined. Voucher bill characteristics and state characteristics play important roles. Voucher bills have been passed only in the more conservative Republican states, and almost all of the successful voucher programs have been targeted at large, struggling school districts.

On January 2, 2005, Governor Jeb Bush signed House Bill 1-A (HB 1A) into law, which created Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) Program. Using the policy instruments of regulation, finance, and support services, the VPK program is analyzed. The likely consequences of the VPK program on the criteria of freedom of choice, productive efficiency, equity, and social cohesion based on specific benchmarks are predicted using the analysis of the policy instruments. The Florida VPK program appears to favor the principles of freedom of choice and efficiency at the expense of equity and social cohesion.

This paper analyzes the impact of voucher design on student sorting, and more specifically investigates whether there are feasible ways of designing vouchers that can reduce or eliminate student sorting. It studies these questions in the context of the Milwaukee voucher program. Much of the existing literature investigates the question of sorting where private schools can screen students. However, the publicly funded U.S. voucher programs require private schools to accept all students unless oversubscribed and to pick students randomly if oversubscribed. The paper focuses on two crucial features of the Milwaukee voucher program–random private school selection and the absence of topping up of vouchers. In the context of a theoretical model, it argues that random private school selection alone cannot prevent student sorting. However, random private school selection coupled with the absence of topping up can preclude sorting by income, although there is still sorting by ability. Using a logit model and student level data from the Milwaukee voucher program, it then establishes that random selection has indeed taken place so that it provides an appropriate setting to test the corresponding theoretical predictions in the data. Next, using several alternative logit specifications, it demonstrates that these predictions are validated empirically. These findings have important policy implications.

This study by Gregory Elacqua examines the actual behavior of parents when selecting schools in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile. Chile has sponsored a national voucher program since 1980 where all students can choose to enroll in public, private non-profit or for-profit schools, both secular and religious. First, Elacqua conducts a survey of parents. He agrees with past studies and reports that parents list academics to be important when selecting a school. Next, Elacqua conducts a multivariate analysis of parental behavior to ascertain what criteria parents actually used in making their decisions. He found that parents’ decisions were more heavily influenced by school demographics than academic performance. Based on this evidence, he argues that unfettered choice may further stratify student populations, thereby reducing competition and incentives for schools to improve. Associate Director of the NCSPE, Dr. Clive Belfield remarks that “market-based reforms are intended to give parents choices about schools. But they simply assume that parents can make informed choices. This paper examines directly the information sets that parents use to make these choices .”

The economic model of education policy assumes a substantial consensus for a common set of educational goals. Unfortunately, such agreement rarely exists in the construction of real world reforms. In the case of educational vouchers, this problem is exacerbated by multiple goals and a lack of credible evidence, which neither supports nor refutes program effectiveness. Research has become a venue for competing ideologies and we conclude that the frenzied search for evidence on the impact of vouchers on student achievement is a charade that will not settle the debate. The primary conflict is between what we term libertarian and social contract positions. Libertarians believe freedom of choice should be the highest priority of voucher reforms and assume that increased options will promote greater efficiency and (possibly) equity. Advocates for a social contract maintain that education generates important positive externalities that are best promoted through a free, publicly-funded and democratically determined system. The following paper contends that evaluations must openly acknowledge and account for competing beliefs. We define a comprehensive framework of analysis that employs four criteria– freedom of choice, efficiency, equity, and social cohesion–to analyze the regulation, finance, and social services provisions of individual voucher programs. Our framework allows policy makers to gauge desired outcomes and understand the tradeoffs that choice reforms entail, especially when evidence is limited. This article was also published in the American Journal of Education, 111, August 2005.

Vouchers are one of the most discussed educational policies. However, little attention has been given to how the structure of specific vouchers affects the outcome of the system. This article examines Chile's twenty years of experience with a flat voucher from the perspective of social inequality. When vouchers deliver the same resources to children from different socioeconomic backgrounds, there is a design problem that needs to be addressed. We propose a modification of the current voucher applied in Chile to an income related system (a basic voucher plus a means-tested voucher) and estimate the financial resources involved. We also set out general lessons for those interested in introducing a national voucher system.