Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

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The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has released a new quick review of the report “Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program: Final Report”. This study examines whether winning a lottery for the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offers vouchers to students to attend private schools, improved low-income students’ reading and math achievement and their probability of graduating from high school. The study found that winning a lottery for a private school scholarship did not have statistically significant effects on reading and math achievement. However, students who won the scholarship lottery were significantly more likely to graduate from high school: 82% for the group that won the lottery compared with 70% for the group that lost the lottery, an effect size of 0.26. Similar results were found for the subset of students attending schools designated as “in need of improvement” under the No Child Left Behind Act when they applied for a scholarship. Winning the lottery did not have a statistically significant effect on reading.