Jennifer O. Aguirre and Matthew Ladner, Children's Educational Opportunity Foundation
November 4, 2003
The focus of this new report is the HORIZON school choice program in San Antonio. The program offered privately financed school vouchers to every child living in the Edgewood Independent School District, a district where more than 97 percent of the student population is Hispanic. The program began in 1998-9, and since then just 7 percent of students have accepted the vouchers. The result of this minimal intervention? Students remaining in the Edgewood system "have made substantial progress in closing the gap with the rest of the state, and hundreds of children have made substantial academic progress in private schools of their parents' choice." In addition, both the district budget and teacher salaries have risen. Were these increases due to the HORIZON Program? As always, it is difficult to determine causality and at least one skeptic believes it's "more likely that the increase was related to changes in teaching practices in response to state pressure to raise test scores" (http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/pdf/Edgewood-Final,%206.7.01.pdf). But such positive results certainly pique one's interest. Check it out for yourself at http://www.childrenfirstamerica.org/research/choice/CEOReportRevised10-28-03.pdf.
