Evaluating the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program
Highlights
- Abt was asked to determine how the private school voucher program could be improved.
- Abt will design and conduct studies to understand student and family experiences with the program.
- Results are forthcoming.
To date, evidence on the effectiveness of school voucher programs is mixed. That’s why the U.S. Congress mandated an evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), the only federally funded voucher program. The Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences asked Abt Global to evaluate how well the program works and how it could be improved.
Abt will design and conduct studies to examine how the D.C. OSP is implemented and how participating students are progressing academically. These studies will be designed to provide critical new evidence about school voucher programs, in particular about the factors related to how they work and the quality of instruction students receive. Abt is partnering with the Center for Reinventing Public Education and Dr. Anna Egalite from North Carolina State University to carry out this evaluation.
The results of our first large-scale evaluation of a school choice initiative are forthcoming.
Related:
Abt to Evaluate the Only Federally Funded School Voucher Program