Most parents of students receiving aid through the Opportunity Scholarship Program, a federally funded K-12 voucher program for poor families who send their children to private schools in the District of Columbia, say they have seen progress in the program’s handling of school safety issues and in efforts to make academics a higher priority, a report says.
The study by a team of researchers from the School Choice Demonstration Project, a Washington-based education research center, also found that parents of the voucher students feel that interaction with school officials is more helpful in gaining information about their children’s schools, rather than school newsletters or other publications.
The data for the study were gathered by conducting interviews with focus groups of 110 families, representing 180 students who were awarded vouchers from the program.
See other stories on education issues in District of Columbia. See data on the District of Columbia’s public school system.