United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2001-08-31 monographic deposited born digital GA 1.13:GAO-01-914 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-914 P0b002ee180385247 f:d01914 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-914 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-914 GAO-01-914 Academic achievement Aid for education Disadvantaged persons Elementary schools Eligibility criteria Funds management Private schools Quality control Secondary schools Cleveland (OH) Milwaukee (WI) Other Written Product A01676 This report reviews publicly funded school vouchers, which provide money for families to send their children to private schools, in the Cleveland and Milwaukee voucher programs. State laws and regulations govern the participation of students and schools in the Cleveland and Milwaukee programs. Both programs were primarily designed to provide educational opportunity for students of low-income families residing within the Cleveland school district or the city of Milwaukee and are similar in their design. Both programs require participating private schools to be located within the city or the city's school district and to adhere to state standards for private schools, such as those covering health and safety. Among the research reports addressing student characteristics, the most commonly reported data (excluding race) focused on family income, the family's living arrangement, and parents' education. In both Cleveland and Milwaukee, voucher students were more likely than public school students to come from families that had less income and were headed by a parent who was single or not married to the person he or she were living with. Some information about the racial and ethnic composition of Cleveland's and Milwaukee's public school and voucher students is available, but whether the composition changed as a result of the voucher programs is unclear. Ohio and Wisconsin use different methods to provide state funds for the Cleveland and Milwaukee voucher programs and spend less on voucher students than on public school students. The Cleveland voucher program is funded with Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid funds up to a limit established by the Ohio Legislature. Wisconsin funds the Milwaukee voucher program with general state aid funds based on the number of students participating in the program in a given year. The contracted evaluations of voucher students' academic achievement in Cleveland and Milwaukee found little or no difference in voucher and public school students' performance, but studies by other investigators found that voucher students did better in some of the subject areas tested. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-914/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-914.htm GAO-01-914 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-914 Other Written Product GAO-01-914; School Vouchers: Publicly Funded Programs in Cleveland and Milwaukee; Academic achievement Aid for education Disadvantaged persons Elementary schools Eligibility criteria Funds management Private schools Quality control Secondary schools Cleveland (OH) Milwaukee (WI)