The National Center on School Choice is funded by the United States Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. The Center exercises national leadership in school choice research, including charter and magnet schools, private school vouchers, teacher recruitment, school management, and state policymaking.

Studying Competitive Effects of Vouchers in the
Context of a Natural Experiment

Paul Peterson, Harvard University
William Howell, University of Chicago

This project looks at the effects of vouchers and public school choice in Florida.  Previous voucher analyses conducted at the school level found marginal gains associated with competition and choice. Most studies, however, cannot take into account student movement from one school to another, or changes in the demographic composition of cohorts within a school. Only student-level data allow for the recovery of more precise estimations.  

Fortunately, the Department of Education in Florida has recently provided Center researchers with test score and demographic information on each individual public school student in the state for the school years 1998-99 through 2002-03.  (There were over three million students in 2002-03.) Also included in these data is a broad array of information about the characteristics of schools and districts.  So researchers can, for the first time, use individual test score data to estimate programmatic effects of a statewide Florida voucher initiative as well as the school choice provisions of No Child Left Behind.