Journal Article: Special Education Vouchers Can Affect How Schools Identify Students

Vouchers for special education students decrease the likelihood that a student was diagnosed with a mild disability, according to a study published in the June issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the leading empirical journal of the American Educational Research Association. University of Arkansas professor Jay P. Greene wrote the author with Marcus A. Winters of the University of Colorado.

The article expands on research evaluating public school response to school choice policies by considering the particular influence of voucher programs for disabled students. This is a growing type of choice program that may have different implications for public school systems from those of more conventional choice programs because of the unique funding arrangement under which special education programs operate, the authors wrote.

To date, the considerable body of research evaluating public school responses to school choice policies has not looked specifically at voucher programs targeted to disabled students, according to the article.

The researchers used a data set from Florida to empirically test their predictions. They found that, for students in the fourth through sixth grade, being in an area with more schools participating in Florida's McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities appeared to reduce the rate of being identified with a specific learning disability by about 12 percent. The findings confirm earlier research that showed public schools identify some students as having disabilities in response to financial or testing pressures.

The results on how the McKay program affected student achievement in traditional public schools were less robust, according to the authors. The McKay program tended to have a modest positive impact on math and reading performance of students in public schools.

The article can be read online at the magazine's website.

Greene holds an endowed chair in education reform and serves as head of the department of education reform in the College of Education and Health Professions.