As you can see, we’re not exactly doing cartwheels over here upon hearing what Eleanor Holmes Norton had to say about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. She’s apparently concerned about “protecting the children.” There was not one mention in the Washington Post article, however, about basing future funding decisions on the evidence regarding impacts of the program. Choice supporters (like ourselves) would surely like it if the rigorous external evaluation of the program pointed to significant and large positive impacts for children participating in the program, but alas, it’s simply not that cut and dry.

The first year impact evaluation (released last June), in fact, measures differences occurring just 7 months after the start of the students’ first year in the program. Not surprisingly, researchers found no statistically significant impacts, positive or negative, on student reading or math achievement for year one. They did, however, find that the program had substantial positive impact on parents’ views of school safety (i.e., parents in the treatment group perceived their child’s school to be less dangerous than parents in the control group) and on parents’ overall satisfaction with their child’s school. These findings echo what we have learned in other studies; that is, that parents want choices for their children and that they care about a wider variety of outcomes (e.g., school safety) than the outcomes preferred by other education stakeholders (e.g, student achievement). The executive summary of the evaluation closes with this:

The findings here are based on information collected only a year after students applied to the program and may not reflect the consistent impacts of the OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] over a longer period of time.... The first year, results, therefore provide an early look at student experiences in what was a transitional year for most of them. Future reports will examine impacts 2 and 3 years after application to the program, when any short-term effects of students’ transition to new schools may have dissipated.

Unfortunately, the political shenanigans surrounding this program may draw the curtain on it before the program has time to gain traction and potentially demonstrate results for longer than a 7 measly months—an admittedly in-flux time period for transitioning students.