A report on a program that provides low-income families in the District of Columbia with tuition vouchers for private schools found that students didn’t show academic improvements after the program’s first year, though parents were more satisfied with the schools.

Representatives from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s School Choice Demonstration Project discussed on Thursday the U.S. Department of Education analysis on the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program — a federal program implemented last year that provides $7,500 scholarships to low-income families so they can send their children to private schools from kindergarten to 12th grade.

The report found that students who were offered a scholarship did not necessarily improve their test scores, and students did not report feeling safer or more satisfied with their education. But the report also found that parents using the program were more satisfied with their children’s education and safety.

“The [parent’s] interest is not so much as in what is the best product, it’s ‘what is the best match going to be for my child?’ ” said Jane Hannaway, director of the Education Policy Center for The Urban Institute.

Patrick Wolf, Twenty-First Century Chair in School Choice at the University of Arkansas, said parents with younger children — those in kindergarten through third grade — are more likely to apply for the vouchers, and children in those grades do not take standardized tests. Only 5 percent — or fewer than one in 10 — of families eligible for the program apply for it, Wolf said.