The Education Gap
January 01, 2002

The authors performed a series of random-assignment studies on privately funded voucher programs in New York City, Washington D.C., and Dayton. The studies compare combined reading and math test scores of students who used a voucher to attend private schools with those of comparable students in public schools who did not receive a voucher because they lost a random lottery. In New York City, black students using vouchers outperformed the control group by 9 percentile points after three years in the program; in Washington, black students using vouchers outperformed the control group by 9 points after two years; in Dayton, black students using vouchers outperformed the control group by 6.5 points after two years. Results for other racial groups did not achieve statistical significance; very few non-black students were present in the study population, which probably prevented their results from achieving statistical significance. See also Paul E. Peterson and William G. Howell, “The Latest Results from the New York City Voucher Experiment,” Education Next, Spring 2004.