The United States General Accounting Office, August 31, 2001
Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) asked the General Accounting Office to review the evidence on the Milwaukee and Cleveland voucher programs. That report is now out. Besides much useful descriptive information that helps one understand the scope, rules and operations of these two programs, the GAO examined various studies of their effectiveness. School choice watchers (and partisans on both sides) will be frustrated by the conclusion: "None of the findings can be considered definitive....Additional research will be needed." But this may not be forthcoming; the GAO analysts point out, for example, that "Wisconsin has not funded voucher student academic achievement evaluations since 1995, thereby losing data on program performance during the years when the program has grown the most." If you'd like to see for yourself, the report number is GAO-01-914 and can be obtained by writing or phoning the U.S. General Accounting Office, P.O. Box 37050, Washington, DC 20013; (202) 512-6000 You can also find an abstract (and a link to the PDF version of the full report) by surfing to http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/summary.php?recflag=&accno=A01676&rptno=GAO-01-914