Overview

While the merits of vouchers have been the subject of intense public debate in recent years, there has been very little available evidence upon which to gauge their efficacy. The first publicly funded voucher plan involving private schools wasn't established until 1990 in Milwaukee; before then, the only data on school choice came from a small, poorly designed program in California. Voucher programs grew dramatically in the latter half of the 1990s. In 2000, about 60,000 students participated in seventy-one programs, most privately funded. This growth is now providing researchers with the ability to measure the impact of vouchers for the first time in multiple cities. The Education Gap is the first book to gather a significant body of data on vouchers in multiple locations, and it reveals startling new evidence that voucher programs benefit African-American students more than participants from other ethnic groups. To explain this phenomenon, the authors point out that residential selection is the most common form of school choice available in American public education today. Since this process is likely to leave African Americans in the worst public schools, new forms of choice directed toward low-income families are most likely to benefit black students. The authors examine the effects of school vouchers on test scores, parental satisfaction, parent-school communications, and political tolerance among students and parents participating in four pilot programs in New York City; Dayton, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; the Edgewood school district in San Antonio; and a program that offered vouchers to 40,000 low-income families nationwide. Though the programs operated in a wide variety of settings, the findings were surprisingly consistent. After two years, African-American students who used vouchers to switch from public to private schools scored substantially better on math and reading tests. By contrast, no significant positive effects on the test scores of other ethnic groups were detected. While parents in all ethnic groups were generally more supportive of private education, African-American parents expressed particularly high enthusiasm for the private schools their children attended. The authors also report information on the kinds of students and families who take advantage of a voucher opportunity, allowing them to seewhether only the ¡°best and brightest¡± public school students were able to take advantage of school voucher programs. The results documented in The Education Gap shed new light on the effects of school vouchers on students in poor, urban environments. This information will be important to policymakers, scholars, and citizens are they continue to search for ways to improve education in urban areas.

Full Product Details

Author:   William G Howell ,  Paul Peterson
Publisher:   Rowman & Littlefield
Imprint:   Brookings Institution
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.70cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.033kg
ISBN:  

9780815702146

ISBN 10:   0815702140
Pages:   275
Publication Date:   30 April 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Replaced By:   9780815736851
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

Reviews

The authors' RFT design sets this study apart from most of the earlier school choice studies...the authors' sophisticated and skillfully presented research elevates a debate that has been largely limited to the realm of politics and public opinion...This impressive volume should be required reading for anyone nvolved in K-12 research or policymaking. --Michael F. Addonizio, Wayne State University, Book Review This is the most important book ever written on the subject of vouchers. --John E. Brandl, University of Minnesota, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs Love them or hate them, vouchers are on the agenda. Because of the strength of its research design and the daunting financial and administrative hurdles facing anyone who tries to launch another randomized evaluation of vouchers, The Education Gap will provide an important intellectual battleground for the debate over vouchers for years to come. --Alan B. Krueger, Princeton University provide[s] convincing evidence that someone should fund a large, multi-year program that pays all the tuition for any low-income parent who wants to send a child to a private school. --Martin Morse Wooster, The Washington Times, 9/22/2002 A well-crafted piece of work. --Frances C. Fowler, Miami of Ohio University, Educational Researcher, 3/1/2003 Presents the results of what has been called the most comprehensive study on vouchers conducted to date. -- Education Week, 8/7/2002

The authors' RFT design sets this study apart from most of the earlier school choice studies...the authors' sophisticated and skillfully presented research elevates a debate that has been largely limited to the realm of politics and public opinion...This impressive volume should be required reading for anyone nvolved in K-12 research or policymaking. - Michael F. Addonizio, Wayne State University, Book Review This is the most important book ever written on the subject of vouchers. - John E. Brandl, University of Minnesota, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs Love them or hate them, vouchers are on the agenda. Because of the strength of its research design and the daunting financial and administrative hurdles facing anyone who tries to launch another randomized evaluation of vouchers, The Education Gap will provide an important intellectual battleground for the debate over vouchers for years to come. - Alan B. Krueger, Princeton University provide[s] convincing evidence that someone should fund a large, multi-year program that pays all the tuition for any low-income parent who wants to send a child to a private school. - Martin Morse Wooster, The Washington Times, 9/22/2002 A well-crafted piece of work. - Frances C. Fowler, Miami of Ohio University, Educational Researcher, 3/1/2003 Presents the results of what has been called the most comprehensive study on vouchers conducted to date. - Education Week, 8/7/2002

Author Information

William G. Howell is an associate professor in the Government Department at Harvard University and deputy director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard. Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard, the director of PEPG, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is author or editor of numerous books, including The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools, with William G. Howell (Brookings, 2004 and 2006). He is coeditor (with Martin West) of No Child Left Behind? The Practice and Politics of School Accountability (Brookings, 2003).

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions