Government Funding and Regulation of a Texas Voucher Program

This study was designed to determine how willing private schools are to participate in a limited school voucher program if various state regulations are required and whether willingness to participate varies among types of schools. Provisions of voucher bills proposed in the Texas legislature and requirements included in other states' legislation were used to determine the sample, hypothetical voucher amount, and possible state regulations. Three hundred eighteen surveys were sent, and 150 were returned, giving a 47% return rate. Data were entered into SPSS and analyzed using chi-square and crosstabs. Initially chi square was used to see if findings were significant at the .0041 level. This alpha level was reached by using the Bonferroni correction factor, which holds experiment wise Type I error to .05. Crosstabs was used to determine if relationships between regulation acceptance and type of schools were significant. Overall, as the amount of regulation increased, private school willingness to participate in a voucher program decreased. The regulations rejected by a large majority of schools in all categories were open admissions and student religious exemptions. In the areas of testing, curriculum, and teacher qualifications, private schools were much more willing to participate if they were allowed to utilize their own practices than if required to follow regulations required of Texas public schools. These findings were significant. When analyzing what type of school would be most interested in participating in a voucher program, the factor that yielded the most significant results was amount of yearly tuition. Private school willingness to participate in a voucher program was directly related to the amount of tuition charged. Those private schools with tuitions that were at or below the hypothetical voucher amount were much more likely to participate than those with higher tuition. Overall, significant results were shown with almost every regulation.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2005

Author dc:creator

• Morgan, Lisa Ann

Contributors dc:contributor

• Adkison, Judith A.
• Camp, William E.
• Young, Jon I.
• Kemerer, Frank R.

• Texas voucher program
• tuition
• private schools
• state regulations

Statement dc:rights

• Use restricted to UNT Community
• Copyright
• Morgan, Lisa Ann
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 67836654
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4807/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc4807

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc4807