Are school choice programs accountable?
In simple terms, the gold standard that Milton Friedman envisioned in his proposal 50 years ago is that schools are directly accountable to parents. When parents are free to choose their child’s educational environment, schools must ensure that they provide the best product possible. Otherwise, parents can choose a new provider. Pubic accountability for the use of public funds, however, is a complex issue. On one hand, it is critical to ensure that private schools participating in a school choice program are not overburdened with regulations and that they maintain their unique character and autonomy. State agencies should not be able to regulate the educational curriculum of participating schools and should not impose any additional regulations beyond those necessary to enforce the general requirements of the school choice program. To do more would limit the number of educational settings available to parents. On the other hand, since oversight of publicly funded programs is often mand
