The Effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Student Achievement and College Entrance
Department
Economics, Finance and Quantitative Analysis
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2021
Abstract
The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly funded vouchers to moderate- and low-income students in low-performing public schools to enroll in participating private schools. Established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP expanded statewide in 2012. Drawing upon the random lotteries that placed students in LSP schools, we estimate the causal impact of using an LSP voucher to enroll in a private school on student achievement on the state accountability assessments in math, English Language Arts, and science over a four-year period, as well as on the likelihood of enrolling in college. The results from our primary analytic sample indicate substantial negative achievement impacts, especially in math, that diminish after the first year but persist after four years. In contrast, when considering the likelihood of students entering college, we observe no statistically significant difference between scholarship users and their control counterparts.
Journal Title
Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
Journal ISSN
19345747
Volume
14
Issue
4
First Page
861
Last Page
899
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1080/19345747.2021.1938311