D.C. students who received school vouchers did not score significantly higher on reading and math tests after their first year in private schools than students in public schools, according to a federal report released yesterday.
However, the U.S. Department of Education officials who released the report also said the majority of school voucher studies do not show significant effects to student test scores until after the first year.
One reason could be because students are adjusting to more rigorous academics at private schools during the first year, said Grover J. Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences.
“They’re moving into an environment where they’re less well prepared than they need to be,” he said.
More conclusive and meaningful results will emerge in the next two years as the study continues to follow the performance of the two groups of students, Mr. Whitehurst said.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting congressional delegate, said the study affirmed her opposition to the program.
“This has been quite a fight. Round one is over, and the results really show that vouchers do not improve student achievement when compared with comparable students,” said Mrs. Norton, a Democrat.
Virginia Walden Ford, director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, which lobbied for the vouchers, said the results of the study do not surprise her.
“You have to remember these kids are coming into this program behind,” she said. “So what the private schools are charged with initially is bringing them up to grade level. So it would make sense to me that the first year would not show significant gains.”
The one exception to the report’s conclusion was that scholarship students who had higher test scores before they received vouchers and those who did not come from failing public schools did improve their math scores as compared to public school students.
“What’s suggested by the data is that kids who are more prepared … are better able to adapt to that change in the first year than kids who are less well prepared and attending schools that are not performing as well,” Mr. Whitehurst said.
The study also reported that parents of children who received vouchers were much more likely to be satisfied with their children’s education than parents of children in public school. Scholarship students, however, were not more satisfied with their schools than public school students.
The congressionally funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program gave $7,500 vouchers last school year to more than 1,800 D.C. students whose families live near the poverty level. Students of all grade levels used the scholarships to attend 60 private schools in the District.
Priority is given to students who come from public schools designated as “in need of improvement” for failing to meet standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Congress authorized the $14-million-a-year program in 2004 over the opposition of many Democrats, including Mrs. Norton.
One student who received a voucher said her grades dropped from As to Bs when she moved from Takoma Educational Center, a D.C. public school, to Georgetown Day School.
The private school is more difficult than she was used to, said Jordan White, 15.
“The Cs and Ds we get at Georgetown Day School would be As anywhere else,” she said. “I’m still adjusting to it right now.”
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