Research Paper on:
Scholastic Achievement and School Vouchers

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
studies show the voucher students achieving statistically greater than their public school peers. Other studies conclude there is no substantial difference. This paper reports research on achievement and vouchers. The  present study hypothesized no difference would be found in performance on the Ohio Proficiency Test. Two grade levels were included in the study - 3rd and 5th and the comparison  was limited to voucher students attending parochial schools. Differences were found between the two groups but not at a significant level. Introduction Cleveland has a very poor  public school system with only a third of the students graduating from high school (Thigpen, 2000). The district reportedly spends $8,502 per student per year in this 76,000 student district  but the schools do not meet even one of the 27 performance standards established by the state (Thigpen, 2000). The voucher program began in 1995 and gave the poorest parents  in the district the same choices as the richest parents - they could send their children to private schools (Thigpen, 2000). Sixty-percent of the parents who use vouchers are the  poorest in the city, parents well below the poverty line (Thigpen, 2000). Cleveland offers vouchers of $2,250, which is more than the tuition at local parochial schools but less than  half the costs of private nonsectarian schools (Thigpen, 2000). For more than two decades there has been a raging debate regarding the value and benefits of school vouchers. Opponents argue  that students who receive vouchers do not achieve any better in their private school settings than those attending the public schools. Proponents argue that students who receive vouchers have higher  levels of achievement than they had in the public school settings. This purpose of this study is to investigate the achievement levels of students receiving vouchers as compared to students