Vouchers in the Bayou: The Effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program on Student Achievement After 2 Years

Abstract

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly funded vouchers to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250% of the poverty line, allowing them to enroll in participating private schools. Initially established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. This article examines the experimental effects of using an LSP scholarship to enroll in one’s first-choice private school on student achievement in the first 2 years following the program’s expansion. Our results indicate that the use of an LSP scholarship has negatively affected both English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics achievement. We observe less negative effect estimates in the second year of the program, with the impacts on ELA only on the margin of statistical significance.