Students using vouchers to attend private schools in Louisiana suffer significant academic setbacks, a new study has found.
This is the first time high-quality research showed students accepting vouchers to attend private schools actually lost ground academically compared to their peers who instead stayed behind in public schools. School choice supporters are now debating whether bad (or excessive) regulations are to blame.
Study authors Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Parag A. Pathak and Christopher Walters compared the academic performance of students who used vouchers with students who entered lotteries but did not receive them. They found using vouchers to attend private schools hurt students’ math, reading, science and social science scores. Depending on the subject, participating in the voucher program increased the likelihood of a failing score by anywhere from 24 to 50 percent.
Of the thirteen “gold standard” studies on school vouchers, this is the first in which researchers found receiving vouchers actually harmed students academically. One found no effect, while 11 found small but positive impacts for some or all students participating.
The researchers note the discrepancy with previous studies, and hint that poor policy design may share at least some of the blame for the dismal results this time.
They note that from 2000 to 2012, voucher schools that participated in the program saw a 12.4 percent decline in enrollment. Private schools that decided not to accept vouchers grew by 2.8 percent over the same period. The authors write that these findings suggest “struggling private schools may opt in to the voucher program to combat stagnating enrollment.”
The findings launched school choice supporters into debates over whether bad or excessive regulations may discourage better private schools from accepting vouchers.
According to the Louisiana Department of Education, less than one-third of eligible private schools have agreed to participate. A survey released last year by the American Enterprise Institute offered a potential explanation for this low participation. It discovered 79 percent of private school principals said future regulations played a role the decision to not participate, while 72 percent worried about the program’s effect on the school’s independence, character, or identity.
Another survey by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute rated Louisiana’s voucher program one of the most heavily regulated private school choice programs in the country.
Among other things:
- Private schools participating in the program must administer the state’s assessments. Schools with 40 or more voucher students receive letter grades, like public schools.
- Private schools with low scores may be prohibited from enrolling new students or expelled from the program altogether.
- The Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education controls the voucher enrollment of all participating private schools through a centralized lottery system.
- Private schools must accept vouchers as full payment for tuition and cannot charge additional fees to cover the difference. (The vouchers are worth about $5,300 on average, compared to the $8,600 received by public schools.)
The researchers suggest the program draws schools that tend to spend fewer resources on education. “Consistent with this argument,” the researchers wrote, “tuition at [eligible] private schools is typically well below public per-pupil spending. Our findings imply that these schools also provide lower educational quality.”
In short, the program’s heavy regulations and low funding are causing it to attract schools that spend the least educating their students, and that were facing enrollment declines before the program’s inception — meaning it’s possible the regulations, aimed at ensuring voucher students attend high-quality schools, are having the opposite of their intended effect.
At this point, it’s hard to say exactly which rules and regulations are to blame for these results, and to what extent. With more research, this setback in Louisiana can become a learning opportunity.
