Comments on 'Another Look at the New York City Voucher Experiment.'

Do private school vouchers have an impact on students’ achievement? A recent reanalysis of our 2002 report on an evaluation of the School Choice Scholarships Foundation program in New York City provides more information to inform the debate. In these comments presented at the National Press Club, Myers and Mayer note that the reanalysis, conducted by Alan Krueger and Pei Zhu of Princeton University, generally supports Mathematica's original conclusion of no impacts on test scores when students were examined overall. The Mathematica researchers also noted positive impacts on test scores for African Americans, but no impacts on test scores for Latinos when the findings were examined by subgroup. The Princeton team of came to different conclusions about the subgroup impacts, based on an enlarged sample that included kindergarteners and students with missing baseline test scores. Furthermore, they used a different definition of race and ethnicity.