The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools

Abstract

"The voucher debate has been both intense and ideologically polarizing, in good part because so little is known about how voucher programs operate in practice. In The Education Gap, William Howell and Paul Peterson, with coauthors Patrick Wolf and David Campbell, report new findings drawn from the most comprehensive study on vouchers conducted to date." "The result of a massive research enterprise, the book presents data from randomized field trials conducted in New York City; Dayton, Ohio; and Washington, D.C. It also includes findings from a voucher initiative in the Edgewood school district in San Antonio and a randomized field trial evaluation of a program that offered vouchers to 40,000 low-income families nationwide." "The findings shed new light on how existing voucher programs affect students' educational experiences, covering factors such as school climate, class size, homework, resources, and test scores. They also reveal the impact of voucher programs on racial segregation, school-family communication, political tolerance, community social capital, parental satisfaction, and children's self-esteem."--BOOK JACKET.