Does school choice make public schools better?
A. A large body of studies shows that competition from school choice improves public schools. If all schools compete for students, public schools will not be able to take students for granted, as they do now; they will have to improve to prevent students from walking out the door. Not one empirical study has ever found that school choice hurts public school outcomes; they have only showed improvement.
A large body of evidence says yes. If all schools compete for students, public schools will not be able to take students for granted, as they do now; they will have to improve to prevent students from walking out the door. In practice, it is becoming clear that this is exactly what is happening. Not one empirical study has ever found that outcomes at U.S. public schools got worse when exposed to school choice, and numerous studies have found that they improve.
• A large body of studies shows that competition from school choice improves public schools. No empirical study has ever found that school choice hurts public-school outcomes. • A 2004 study by the Manhattan Institute found that schools facing competition from vouchers outpaced other Florida schools by 15 points in test scores. • A 2001 Harvard study found that public schools in Milwaukee that were exposed to voucher competition had test-score gains over a three-year period that outpaced other public schools. Q. Doesn’t school choice drain resources from public schools? • School choice programs do not drain money from public schools. Actually, they leave more money behind to educate the fewer students attending public schools. No state or city with school choice has seen its public school budgets decrease. • The amount of money spent on a voucher or scholarship for each student is less than what would have been spent on that student if he or she had remained in public schools.
A growing body of evidence says yes. The theory is simple: if all schools compete for students, public schooling will improve. In practice, it is becoming clear that this is exactly what is happening. Florida A 2003 study by Jay Greene and Marcus Winters concluded that “Florida’s low-performing public schools are improving in direct proportion to the challenge they face from voucher competition. These improvements are real, not the result of test gaming [or] demographic shifts.” This study reconfirms an earlier 2001 study by Dr. Greene, which found that “failing [public] schools that faced the prospect of vouchers made improvements that were nearly twice as large as gains displayed by other schools in the state.” Another study by Carol Innerst found that in response to the threat of vouchers, Florida’s low-performing public schools extended the school year, hired more reading specialists, implemented one-on-one tutoring programs and developed reading programs that focus on phonics.
