Study: Catholic 'Brand' Satisfied Voucher Parents

What parents perceive as the Catholic school “brand” of academic rigor and strong discipline, among other traits, has held up for a majority of parents participating in the District of Columbia’s controversial school voucher program, concludes a study published in the spring edition of Education Finance and Policy , a peer-reviewed journal.

Out of 159 parents who used vouchers to send their children to Roman Catholic schools in the nation’s capital starting in the fall 1998 and from whom researchers were able to obtain surveys both initially and two years later, 79 percent were still using those federally financed vouchers for Catholic schools by the spring of 2000, the researchers found. But 33 participants, or 21 percent, had left Catholic schools and the voucher program—fewer than is often the case for urban voucher programs.

The researchers counted parents who kept their children in Catholic schools with vouchers for at least one school year as satisfied with the Catholic brand and those who...