An important policy question in the design of voucher programs intended to expand educational opportunities for low-achieving students is whether school choice encourages private schools to attract higher-performing students from traditional public schools (TPS) while pushing out lower-performing or higher-cost students If such sorting occurs, an additional concern is that TPS may be left disproportionately responsible for educating more challenging and costly students.
Joseph Waddington, Ron Zimmer, and Mark Berends study these issues in the context of Indiana’s voucher program, one of the largest statewide private school voucher programs in the United States. They analyze student transition patterns across school sectors and student types to assess the presence of cream-skimming and pushout effects.
The authors find little evidence that private schools cream skim higher-achieving, less disruptive, or less costly-to-educate students from TPS. Although high-achieving students are generally less likely to change schools, differential transition rates for high-achieving voucher students are largely null across subjects and achievement thresholds.
In contrast, they find some evidence consistent with a pushout effect. The lowest-achieving voucher students exit private schools at slightly higher rates than similarly low-achieving, voucher-eligible TPS students and than higher-achieving voucher students in private schools. Evidence for pushout among specific subgroups is mixed: compared with relevant comparison groups, while there appears to be a null or inconsistent effect across comparison groups for voucher students receiving special education services.
Journal Article: https://journals.sagepub.com/d...
Working Paper: https://edworkingpapers.com/ai...