EdChoice Research Review - 2025 Edition - A guide to private school choice studies

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Kyle

An updated 2025 research review synthesizes evidence on private school choice programs in America, including vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and education savings accounts (ESAs). It summarizes findings across major outcomes such as participant test scores, educational attainment, parent satisfaction, impacts on public school students, civic values, and racial and ethnic integration. The review also covers fiscal effects, school safety, and explains how study results are classified, emphasizing randomized control trials and research reliability standards.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages44

Reading Time1 h 51 min

AccessFree to download

Why Read This

School Choice Program Studies to Date

Number of Studies by Location

Types of Research You Can Trust

Gold Standard

Silver Standard

Bronze Standard

What We Include

Research Review A guide to the studies on private school choice 2025 EDITION Previously known as the EdChoice Study Guide WHY READ THIS Each year, states consider creating or expanding school choice programs—such as vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and education savings accounts (ESAs)—which empower families to choose beyond their ZIP Code-assigned schools. And families weigh whether they are the right fit for their children. Anyone can promise what school choice programs could, would or should do. But we prefer to rely on what the data say these programs are already doing—whether that’s positive, negative or unknown. Researchers from across the country have published at least 188 empirical studies on the effectiveness of private school choice programs. For most, that’s an overwhelming amount of literature to tackle. That’s why we are excited to bring you the EdChoice Research Review, a resource updated annually exploring available research on private school choice programs in America. In this guide, you’ll learn what the body of rigorous research says about school choice’s effect on: • Participant Test Scores • Participant Educational Attainment • Parent Satisfaction • Public School Students’Academics • Students’ Civic Values and Practices • Racial and Ethnic Integration in Schools • Taxpayers, State Budgets, and Public School Districts (Fiscal Effects) • School Safety SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM STUDIES TO DATE | Outcome
Program Participant Test Scores | Number
of
Studies
22 | Any
Positive
Effect
13 | No
Visible
Effect
5 | Any
Negative
Effect
4 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Educational Attainment | 8 | 6 | 2 | 0 | | Parent Satisfaction | 33 | 31 | 1 | 2 | | Public School Students’ Academics | 30 | 27 | 1 | 2 | | Civic Values and Practices | 11 | 6 | 5 | 0 | | Racial/Ethnic Integration* | 8 | 7 | 1 | 0 | | Fiscal Effects | 83 | 77 | 5 | 7 | | School Safety | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | | Total | 203 | 175 | 20 | 15 | *One study employed multiple measures of racial integration and concluded that the effects of the program was overallneutral. We included this study in the "No Visible Effect" column. Notes: If a study’s analysis produced any positive or negative results or both, we classify those studies as positive, negative or both. Studies that did not produce any statistically signiﬁcant results for any subgroup are classiﬁed as “no visible effect.” The number of effects detected may differ from the number of studies included in the table because we classify one study as having detected both positive and negative effects. For Lamarche (2008) we removed the negative indicator because it was brought to our attention that the negative estimation in the paper was not a program effect. Rather, it was making a comparison between high-income and low-income groups of students. For Lamarche (2008) we removed the negative indicator because it was brought to our attention that the negative estimation in the paper was not a program effect. Rather, it was making a comparison between high-income and low-income groups of students. NUMBER OF STUDIES OF PRIVATE SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAMS BY LOCATION 84% of reviewed empirical studies from across the country find school choice programs have positive effects on students, schools or state budgets TYPES OF RESEARCH YOU CAN TRUST GOLD STANDARD A random-assignment study is the strongest type of analysis in social science. For this reason, we focus only on random assignment studies—also known as randomized control trials (RCTs)—whenever possible. Random assignment studies make it possible for researchers to make apples-to-apples comparisons between groups that are, on average, the same. The only difference between the two groups is whether they received the treatment—treatment in this case being the use of an ESA, voucher or scholarship. So, researchers can confidently say that the private school choice program caused

FAQs

What outcomes does the EdChoice Research Review evaluate?

It summarizes effects on participant test scores, educational attainment, parent satisfaction, public school students’ academics, students’ civic values and practices, racial and ethnic integration, fiscal effects, and school safety.

How does the review classify study results like positive, negative, and no visible effect?

Studies are marked positive or negative based on whether analyses produce statistically significant results. “No visible effect” means the study finds neither positive nor negative changes, including cases with no statistically significant results for subgroups.

Why does the review emphasize randomized assignment studies?

Random-assignment studies enable apples-to-apples comparisons between groups that differ mainly by whether they received the treatment (ESA, voucher, or scholarship), which helps control for bias. The guide notes that a top U.S. Department of Education rating corresponds to meeting group design standards without reservations.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Kyle