Competitive Effects of the Expansion of Means-Tested Private School Vouchers in North Carolina

We examine whether North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship Program generated achievement effects for public school students. Using statewide administrative data and a student fixed-effects design, we relate program expansion to changes in test scores while accounting for pre-program private school competition. Our primary competition measure captures available private school seats within a 30-minute radius; additional measures reflect proximity, density, diversity, and religious options. We find no consistent evidence that voucher expansion affected public school achievement. Small positive estimates from the “slots” measure are not robust to alternative specifications or multiple-testing adjustments. Analyses by student subgroups similarly yield null effects.