Fans and foes of Cleveland's school-voucher program found good news in the latest in a series of state-commissioned studies of the controversial education reform.

The publicly funded research, ordered by the state legislature and conducted by the Center for Evaluation at Indiana University, looked at a group of children who entered school as kindergartners in 1998.

The study, released yesterday, found that by the autumn of the first grade, voucher children were achieving at higher levels than public school students in mathematics, reading and language. But gains made by public school students in the first grade closed the gap.

While students enrolled in the program three years - from kindergarten through second grade - performed slightly better than public-school peers, the difference was statistically insignificant.

The study will be fodder for voucher advocates and opponents alike if the U.S. Supreme Court agrees next month to review whether the program, now beginning its sixth year, is constitutional.

"If there is no significant difference in student performance, then I think this pilot program has done what it was supposed to do," said Cleveland Teachers Union President Richard A. DeColibus. "Now it's time to end this boondoggle and put that $6 million back into public education."

The program uses public money to pay for the private school tuition of about 4,000 Cleveland children from low-income families.

A federal appeals court last year declared the program unconstitutional because children in it attend mostly religious schools.

Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Washington, D.C.,-based Institute for Justice, said the study would be helpful to voucher advocates in their quest to reverse the latest court setback, which left the program in doubt after this school year.

"Every single study of school choice has reported modest or significant academic progress," said Bolick, whose group represents parents in the program. "Studies like this one demonstrate that the primary effect of school choice is to expand educational opportunities for kids who desperately need them."

Indiana's Kim Metcalf, the researcher on the study, said conclusions on both sides are "both partially right." He said the question of whether the program helps achievement will be clearer as the student cohort is followed through school.

"I don't want people to think we haven't learned anything," Metcalf said. "I think the thing that is most exciting about the study Ohio is allowing us to do is that we are following a group of students to see what may or may not develop."

But voucher critic Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, has seen enough. Mooney said the study underscores the improvement of the Cleveland public schools, which have made gains on fourth-grade Ohio Proficiency Test scores. "It's pretty clear that for whatever reason, kids in the voucher program start out ahead, and then the public schools close the gap," he said. "It speaks to the strength of our public schools."

Contact Scott Stephens at:

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