This publication presents an in-depth look at Annie E. Casey Foundation's investment in the Washington, DC voucher
effort and summarizes results and lessons learned so far. It also includes stories about the
Foundation’s contribution to vouchers in Florida and Milwaukee.

With the nation's only federally-funded school voucher program well into its second year, those involved in getting this controversial experiment up and running say they've learned a lot. But it's still too early to answer the really big question: is the program helping low-income students achieve? Susan Phillips takes a look.

The hard-fought effort to bring federally funded school vouchers to Washington, D.C. is often viewed as the front line in a national battle over school choice. But for Virginia Walden Ford, it’s local and it’s personal. Connect for Kids’ editor Susan Phillips spoke with Walden Ford recently.

School voucher programs, which give public funds to certain families to help them pay for private school tuition, have been a controversial element in efforts to provide more options for children in troubled schools. Now, the nation's capital city is poised to become the highest-profile test case yet for the voucher concept. Cecilia Garcia and Susan Phillips look at what's ahead.

In the midst of an ongoing debate over whether the federal government is providing states with sufficient funds to properly implement the No Child Left Behind Act, the People for the American Way reports that over the past three years, the U.S. Department of Education has directed $75 million to a small number of pro-voucher, pro-privatization advocacy groups.

Charter schools in four of the ten states analyzed in Brookings 2002 Education report scored significantly below similar local public schools on achievement tests. The researchers note, however, that the analysis cannot determine whether these results reflect poor performance on the part of the charter schools or a pre-selection of low-performing students whose parents choose to send them to charter schools. Across all schools, 17-year-olds' arithmetic scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests have fallen precipitously since 1990-largely attributable to poor performance on problems involving fractions.

The popular Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Handbook with step-by-step guidelines for using evaluation to improve youth programs is now online (but be patient because it takes time to download).