Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program: First Year Report on Participation

The District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003 was passed by Congress in January 2004. The Act provided funds for District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) improvement activities and charter school facility acquisitions. Most notably, the statute established what is now called the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program―the first federal government initiative to provide K-12 education scholarships, or vouchers, to families to send their children to private schools of choice. This document is the first of a series of annual reports from the evaluation team, as mandated by Congress. Because the initial cohort of program participants—those who applied in spring 2004 to receive scholarships for the 2004-05 school year—just recently matriculated at their new schools, no impact information is available at this time. Instead, the report describes the purposes and design of the scholarship program, the first-year implementation activities that generated 1,848 eligible applicants and 58 participating private schools, the process of awarding scholarships to 1,366 student applicants, and the characteristics of both applicants and scholarship users. The report provides an important foundation for the later examination of program impacts.