The Indiana Center for Evaluation
March 2003
The Indiana Center for Evaluation continues its state (of Ohio) financed evaluation of the Cleveland voucher program. This "second annual report" presents evidence from autumn 1998 through April 2001 that bears on student and school characteristics and achievement. The students are part of the cohort that entered first grade in 1998 and was nearing the end of third grade in 2001. With the Supreme Court having okayed the program's constitutionality, one naturally wants to know "how it's working," but you won't learn much on that score from this report. It finds few differences in students, schools and achievement results between those using scholarships and those remaining in Cleveland's public schools, though there are lots of interesting tidbits, some of them counterintuitive. (For example, private schools have larger classes AND larger classes are positively associated with higher academic achievement.) The authors note "some evidence of a pattern of slightly greater annual achievement growth among students who have used a scholarship continuously since kindergarten" but say this difference is not yet statistically significant and the children need to be followed over a longer period. The authors (Kim Metcalf and colleagues) don't bother to point out that, even if achievement is identical, the private-school version is being produced at a fraction of the cost of the public-school version. You can find it on the web at http://www.indiana.edu/~iuice/. (When you get there, click on "reports link.")
