Civic Report No. 38 June 2003 Vouchers for Special Education Students: An Evaluation of Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program References Florida Department of Education, “Use of the Exceptional Student Education Matrix of Services,” January 2002. http://www.firn.edu/doe/bin00014/pdf/matrixnu.pdf Lisa Goldstein, “Rewrite of Spec. Ed. Law Passes the House,” Education Week, May 7, 2003. http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=34idea.h22 Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster, “Effects of Funding Incentives on Special Education Enrollment,” December 2002. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_32.htm Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster, “Rising to the Challenge: The Effect of School Choice on Public Schools in Milwaukee and San Antonio,” October 2002. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cb_27.htm Jay P. Greene, Paul E. Peterson, and Jiangtao Du, “Effectiveness of School Choice: The Milwaukee Experiment,” Education and Urban Society, February 1999. http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/other/mil.htm Jay P. Greene, “Vouchers in Charlotte,” Education Next, Summer 2001. http://educationnext.org/20012/46greene.html Jay P. Greene, “The Looming Shadow,” Education Next, Winter 2001. http://www.educationnext.org/20014/76.html Christopher W. Hammons, “The Effects of Town Tuitioning in Vermont and Maine,” Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation, 2001. http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/schoolchoiceworks/mainevermontstudy.pd f William G. Howell and Paul E. Peterson, The Education Gap, Brookings, 2002, p. 161. http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/press/books/education_gap.htm Caroline M. Hoxby, “The Rising Tide,” Education Next, Winter 2001. http://educationnext.org/20014/68.html Caroline M. Hoxby, “Analyzing School Choice Reforms,” in Learning From School Choice, Peterson and Hassel, eds., Brookings, 1998. Alan B. Krueger and Diane M. Whitmore, “The Effect of Attending a Small Class in the Early Grades on College-Test Taking and Middle School Test Results: Evidence from Project STAR,” Economic Journal, January 2001. Alan B. Krueger and Pei Zhu, “Another Look at the New York City School Voucher Experiment,” conference paper, August 20, 2002. http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/470.pdf Kim K. Metcalf, et. al., “Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program,” Indiana Center for Evaluation, March 2003. http://www.indiana.edu/~iuice/forms/rprt_rqs.html People for the American Way/Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, “Jeopardizing a Legacy,” March 6, 2003. http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/dfiles/file_167.pdf Paul E. Peterson, William G. Howell, and Jay P. Greene, “An Evaluation of the Cleveland Voucher Program after Two Years,” Program on Education Policy and Governance, June 1999. http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/pdf/clev2rpt.pdf Richard Rothstein, “Voucher Program Gets Failing Grade in Special Ed,” New York Times, June 19, 2002. Cecilia Elena Rouse, “Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1998. http://papers.nber.org/papers/w5964.pdf David F. Salisbury, “Lessons from Florida,” CATO Institute, March 20, 2003. http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp81.pdf Diana Jean Schemo, “ ‘Modest’ Changes Seen for Special Education,” New York Times, September 28, 2002.

EMAIL THIS | PRINTER FRIENDLY CR 38 PDF (334 kb) WHAT THE PRESS SAID SUMMARY: This new study, by Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jay P. Greene, Ph.D. and Greg Forster, Ph.D., is the first empirical examination of the Florida McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities, the nation’s second largest voucher program and the first and only program to offer school vouchers to all special education students in public schools. The study, through telephone surveys of parents of both current and former voucher recipients, shows that participants in the McKay program are being significantly better served by McKay schools compared to the child’s previous public school—regardless of the race, income, or disability level of the voucher recipient. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Executive Summary About the Authors Acknowledgments Introduction Background Previous Research Method Results Parental Satisfaction Class Size Services Provided Individual Education Plans Behavior Problems Problems with Other Students Tuition and Fees Above the Scholarship Demographics Difficulty Finding an Acceptable School Transportation Whether the McKay Program Should Continue Conclusion References Appendix A: Tables and Figures Appendix B Appendix C: Survey Methodology