MOST's Results
Measurable Success
Time and time again, MOST parents tell us that they are overwhelmingly pleased with the school they have been able to choose for their child, with the help of a MOST scholarship. In a 2009 survey of MOST parents, we learned why they are happy with the schools and with the impact the schools have on their scholarship students: because of their love of learning and of school, because of their choice of friends, because of their moral development, and because of their ability to reach their potential as scholars, athletes, artists and community servants.
As for student achievement, the efficacy of these types of scholarship programs is notoriously difficult to measure, particularly in the case of a relatively small program like MOST. While we do conduct evaluations of our program, the results have been mostly inconclusive thus far because of small sample sizes and the difficulty of comparing achievement as measured by many different tests. However what we found in an evaluation of the 2002-2003 school year was that MOST students are exceeding the academic achievement of Memphis City School students. The study of the 2006-2007 school year showed that the group of low-income MOST students tested comparably to national averages, with several instances of percentile rankings above the national average.
Results of Scholarship Programs Nationally
A report entitled A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on School Vouchers, out in March 2011 by The Foundation for Educational Choice, says that the ten “gold standard” studies that have been conducted on voucher programs provide empirical evidence consistently showing vouchers improving outcomes for both participants and public schools.
Programs in Charlotte, Newark, and San Francisco similarly show scholarship students performing as well or better than national averages, a remarkable feat considering that recipients all come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, which typically results in lower levels of academic achievement. Another study of the school choice program within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System demonstrates the value of parental choice -- low-income students in Charlotte who won a school-choice lottery were more likely to graduate from high school, attend a four-year college, and earn a bachelor’s degree than their peers who didn’t benefit from school choice, according to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Additionally, a study released in 2010 showed large academic gains among low-income children attending low-poverty public schools in Raleigh, North Carolina. MOST believes strongly in economic diversity in our schools, and that the MOST program allows more low-income students to have access to schools with a diverse socio-economic student body.
