Outlines Casey's investment in the District of Columbia's voucher program, as well as results, lessons learned, and suggestions for improving legislation. Includes profiles of Casey-supported efforts to improve programs in Florida and Wisconsin.
- Successful Strategy: Voucher recipient parents are far more likely to give their child's school a better rating than are parents of students who didn't receive vouchers.
- Successful Strategy: Parents increased their capacity to evaluate their children's education options.
- Successful Strategy: Parents increased their involvement in their children's education.
- Successful Strategy: Parents report improved communication with their children.
- Successful Strategy: Children demonstrated improved work ethic, attitude toward learning, and self-esteem.
- Observation: Students and parents switching from public to private or parochial school experience culture shock and need ongoing support to overcome it.
- Observation: Funding the vouchers and the evaluation is not enough; programs need significant resources to fund ongoing support for families and schools.
- Observation: Including high schools in voucher programs requires additional thought; overall supply, remediation needs of students, and gaps between voucher amounts and actual tuition costs pose significant obstacles.
- Observation: To provide effective support, use a variety of approaches so that diverse families and children get the help they need to succeed at new schools.
- Challenge: After seven months in the program, voucher students did no worse nor better than students who did not receive vouchers.
What to read next
Published by
Funded by
Copyright
- Copyright 2008 Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Document type
Language
Geography
- North America / United States (Midwestern) / Wisconsin
- North America / United States (Southern) / District of Columbia / Washington
- North America / United States (Southern) / Florida
Linked Data show/hide