Appendix A: Congressionally Mandated Evaluation

Data Collection

To answer these questions, the evaluation will draw on different types of data—some available from DCPS, some collected for the purposes of this study. These data will include pre-Program (baseline) measures of family background and student achievement. The baseline measures allow us to verify that students randomly assigned to the scholarship and nonscholarship groups were, in fact, similar before the Program; the measures also enable us to create subgroups of students whose impacts we might want to examine separately, such as students with low prior achievement. Additional data collected will include annual “in-Program” measures (e.g., parents’ satisfaction with their children’s school, students’ academic achievement), which will serve as outcomes for the rigorous evaluation of Program impacts (table A-1).