ABSTRACT

School voucher programs are scholarship initiatives – frequently government funded or incentivized – that pay for students to attend private schools of their choice. This study is the first formal meta-analytic consolidation of the evidence from all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the student-level math and reading test score effects of school vouchers internationally. Our search process turned up 9,443 potential studies, 21 of which were ultimately included. These 21 studies represent 11 different voucher programs. Utilizing a random effects and robust variance estimation framework, we find moderate evidence of positive achievement impacts of private school vouchers, with substantial effect heterogeneity across programs and outcome years. Suggestive evidence exists that voucher interventions may be cost effective even for null achievement impacts. Future experimental studies of long-term, scaled up voucher interventions could strengthen our understanding of achievement impacts.

摘要

学校代金券计划是奖学金计划——通常由政府资助或激励——用于支付学生就读他们选择的私立学校的费用。这项研究是对所有随机对照试验 (RCT) 证据的首次正式元分析整合，这些试验评估了国际学校代金券对学生水平的数学和阅读考试成绩的影响。我们的搜索过程发现了 9,443 项潜在研究，其中 21 项最终被纳入。这 21 项研究代表了 11 个不同的代金券计划。利用随机效应和稳健的方差估计框架，我们发现了私立学校代金券对成绩的积极影响的中等证据，在项目和结果年份之间具有显着的影响异质性。存在暗示性证据表明，即使对于无效的成就影响，代金券干预也可能具有成本效益。未来对长期、扩大的凭单干预的实验研究可以加强我们对成就影响的理解。