Americans fear that their educational system is in crisis. One proposed solution is to provide government-funded vouchers that would help parents to send their children to private schools. These proponents argue vouchers would result in more effective schools, benefiting both public and private school students, because the increased competitive pressures would improve the performance of all schools. Opponents argue that vouchers are not likely to improve public schools and may, in fact, undermine them, and also assert that choice would lead to increased educational disparity and social stratification. Despite the debate, the momentum for school vouchers has accelerated in recent years. Over 40 cities have either a privately or publicly funded voucher program, and this spring Florida passed the first statewide voucher, or """"""""Opportunity Scholarship,"""""""" program. It is a targeted program, with students attending schools identified as """"""""failing"""""""" eligible to attend another non-failing public or any participating private school in the state. Florida's voucher program is the first that is sufficiently large (as many as 15 percent of all students will eventually be voucher-eligible, and already nearly every school district in the state has at least one potentially voucher-eligible school) and system wide to address many of the important and currently unanswered questions associated with vouchers. We propose to answer two primary questions with the proposed research. The first question is who chooses to use a voucher and why do they choose to do so. Determining the characteristics of students who use vouchers will provide insight into possible social stratification and other effects of the program. The second question is whether there are academic and efficiency benefits to choice for both private and public school students. We also plan to look within the """"""""black box"""""""" of schools to assess why any achievement gains may arise. We propose to address these questions using a combination of unusually rich data on students, teachers, and schools from state administrative records, supplemented by original survey data on public and private schools and districts.
| Beard, John (2007) Recent evidence from human and animal studies regarding iron status and infant development. J Nutr 137:524S-530S |
