Frequently Asked Questions About School Choice

Doesn’t school choice drain resources from public schools?

Absolutely not! No state or city with school choice has seen its public school budgets go down. When Milwaukee's school choice program was founded in 1990-91, its public schools spent $6,316 per student; by 2003-04 that had risen to $10,375. Cleveland's
public school spending rose from $6,616 in 1996-97, when its choice program began, to $10,420 in 2003-04. And these fi gures include only the portion of school budgets known as "current expenditures"; figures for total education spending would be even higher.

Why have cities with school choice seen such large increases in per-student spending? Believe it or not, school choice is one of the reasons. The claim that choice drains money may sound plausible; schools are funded on a per-student basis, so fewer students means less money. But a growing body of research fi nds exactly the opposite: school choice programs actually improve public school financing. school choice gives the public school system more money to educate each student.

The amount of money spent on the voucher or scholarship for each participant in a school choice program is less than what would have been spent on that student if he or she had remained in public schools. That means states save money that can be plowed back into their education budgets and spent on the students who remain in public schools:

• While the average public school spends about $10,000 per student, the average private school charges about $5,000 in tuition. That's the fundamental reason school choice saves money – private schools do a better job at about half the cost.

• A 2006 joint Friedman Foundation/Cato Institute study finds that Washington D.C.'s voucher program saves the city over $250,000 due to the greater efficiency of school choice.

• A 2005 joint Friedman Foundation/Goldwater Institute study finds that Arizona spends between $8,500 and $9,000 on each student in public schools, but students using tax-funded scholarships receive only $3,500 to $4,500. The authors project total savings of $32 million if 5 percent of Arizona students used scholarships.

• A 2005 Friedman Foundation study of a proposed voucher program in Minneapolis finds that the city's public schools spend $13,600 per student. Since the voucher program would cost only $4,600 per student, the potential savings would be quite large – more than $16 million annually.

• A 2005 joint Friedman Foundation/Maryland Public Policy Institute study of a proposed voucher program in Baltimore finds that even a hefty $7,000 voucher still would save public schools money, since the city spends $8,900 on each public school student. Annual savings would total $9 million for every 1,000 enrollees.

• Facing numbers like this, the teacher unions usually retort that they don't account for fixed costs. If a student leaves a public school, that school still has to spend some of the money it did before to cover costs that don't vary much with enrollment levels, such as building maintenance. But studies show that schools' fixed costs aren't big enough to offset the huge savings from school choice:
  • A 2005 Clemson University study finds that, even after accounting for fixed costs, a proposed voucher program for South Carolina (offering $4,000 to $4,600, compared to public spending of $8,300) would save $594 million over its fi rst fi ve years.
  • A 2004 Utah State University study fi nds that a proposed school choice program in Utah would save between $26 million and $144 million every year, even after schools' fi xed costs were taken into account.
  • A 2005 Friedman Foundation study finds that tax-funded scholarships in New Mexico would save $63 million over 10 years.
  • A 2004 joint Friedman Foundation/Josiah Bartlett Center study finds that a proposed voucher program in New Hampshire would save $9 million annually.

Conclusion: School choice programs do not drain money from public schools. Actually, they leave more money behind to educate fewer students. No state or city with school choice has seen its public school budgets go down.

Does school choice make public schools better?

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.

Florida
A 2004 study by Jay Greene and Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute, published in the journal Education Next, found that:

• Low-performing schools facing the threat of vouchers made significantly greater test-score gains than similarly low-performing schools not facing the voucher threat.

• The closer a school was to having vouchers offered to its students, the more dramatic the gains.

• Schools already facing competition from vouchers showed the biggest improvements, outpacing other Florida schools by a full 15 points.

A study by Rajashri Chakrabarti of Cornell, published in the same issue of that journal, found that schools given F grades under the A+ system made greater-than average gains, while schools given F grades under Florida's earlier system (which had no vouchers or other accountability sanctions) made no gains relative to other Florida schools.

Milwaukee

In a 2001 study, Caroline Hoxby of Harvard found that public schools more exposed to voucher competition had test-score gains over a three-year period that outpaced other public schools by 10.2 percentile points in math, 9.3 points in language, 16.2 points in science and 8.1 points in social studies. A 2003 Manhattan Institute study found that fourth-grade test-score gains were much bigger in schools in which more students were eligible for vouchers, such that a school with 100 percent of students eligible would have test-score gains 15 points higher than a school with only 50 percent eligible.

San Antonio
A 2003 Manhattan Institute study by Jay Greene and Greg Forster found that a San Antonio school district facing competition from a privately funded voucher program outperformed 85 percent of Texas districts in its achievement gains.

Maine and Vermont
A 2002 Friedman Foundation study by Christopher Hammons found that tuitioning introduces healthy competitive incentives that improve public schools:

• Public high schools closer to tuitioning towns had better test scores than other public high schools, controlling for school spending and student demographics.

• The effect is large enough that if a town a mile away from a school decided to tuition its students, we would expect the percentage of students passing the state test at that school to increase by 3.4 points – a gain of 12 percent over existing scores.

• If a state wanted to purchase the same test score gains by increasing per pupil spending, it would have to spend an extra $909 per student.

Residential Choice

A large body of studies on residential choice confi rms the positive effects from school competition. Public schools perform better in cities with a large number of small school districts, where it is easier for people to choose the district in which they will live. A 2002 review of all the available research by two professors at Columbia's Teachers College found that the evidence strongly supports a positive effect from school competition caused by residential choice; this has been further confi rmed by recent studies conducted by Harvard's Caroline Hoxby and the Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene and Marcus Winters.

Conclusion: 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.

Are private schools that participate in school choice programs held accountable?

Not only are private schools accountable for the job they do, they're much more accountable than public schools are. Private schools are primarily accountable to parents, who can pull their children out of a school that fails to serve them.

That's a freedom that parents stuck in the public school monopoly don't have.

If a public school fails to perform, parents have no way to hold it accountable; they're out of luck. But private schools are not just accountable to parents, they're also accountable to the public. Private schools in every state comply with a vast array of health and safety regulations, antidiscrimination laws and even rules covering the minimum number of school days. In addition, most private schools already undertake yearly fi nancial audits and evaluate their children using nationally recognized tests, for the simple reason that parents expect and demand it.

Private schools that participate in school choice programs are required to be safe, non-discriminatory and fiscally sound and to fi le regular reports and disclosures.

Teacher unions argue that this isn't enough; in the name of "accountability," they say private schools should have to submit to a giant mountain of red tape and regulatory burdens if they want to participate in school choice programs. But one of the most important reasons private schools do a better job than public schools is that they're free from these restrictions. They can be creative in the classroom and more open to trying different approaches to help children learn.

There is a big difference between the current rules governing private schools and the teacher unions' desire to burden private schools with excessive and pointless regulations. Private schools are good largely because they are free to innovate.

Forcing them to use the same standards as public schools, to take mandatory tests based on curricula chosen by the state rather than parents or to comply with unnecessary red tape is bad news.

More regulations do not always mean more accountability. Ultimately, the thing that gives the concept of "accountability" real teeth is the ability to choose your child's school. With that ability, you can take your child out of a school that isn't doing the job and fi nd a school that will. Without that ability, stuck in your assigned school, your child can be taken for granted and your concerns can be ignored.

Conclusion: Private schools are accountable to both parents (through choice) and the public (through existing accountability rules). Piling on burdensome regulations in the name of accountability would only hamper their ability to teach kids better.

Will school choice turn a private school into an over-regulated public school?

Not if we are vigilant! One reason private schools do so well is that they don't have to deal with the same over-the-top bureaucratic red tape as public schools. Some worry that school choice will endanger this freedom. They fear the teacher union argument that, if school choice is funded through tax dollars, private schools should be heavily regulated in the name of accountability. This kind of thinking could give government a green light to regulate away the very freedom that makes private schools better than public schools.

However, we have to keep pointing out the simple truth: private schools already are accountable. They're accountable to parents, who can pull their children out of a school that fails to serve them – a freedom that parents stuck in the public school monopoly don't have. And they're also accountable to the public, through health and safety regulations, antidiscrimination laws and other state rules, as well as widespread voluntary fi scal audits, accreditation and testing. The good news is that the teacher unions can be beaten. For 15 years, union-sponsored attempts to add unnecessary red tape to the voucher programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland have failed. Every year, opponents have tried to increase the regulations on private schools participating in these programs, and every year parents and supporters have defeated them. Instead, these programs have adopted reasonable accountability rules in cooperation with school choice advocates.

But couldn't these efforts at sabotage someday succeed? That's unlikely, given that the power of the teacher unions is on the wane. If they didn't succeed in sabotaging school choice programs 10 years ago, it's unlikely they will succeed now. As long as supporters of school choice remain vigilant, private schools will continue to enjoy the freedom that allows them to educate kids better than public schools.

Conclusion: Attempts to transform private schools into over-regulated public schools through school choice programs have failed, and with vigilance we can continue to see to it that they fail.

Does the public really want school choice?

No doubt about it! Numerous polls fi nd that most Americans express support for school choice:

• 62 percent agreed, two years in a row, that "parents should have the option of sending their children to non-public schools, including those with a religious affi liation, using vouchers or credits provided by the federal government that would pay for some or all of the costs" (First Amendment Center 2003 & 2004).

• 56 percent said they would select a private school if offered a full-tuition voucher; 48 percent said they would do so even if only offered a half-tuition voucher (PDK/Gallup 2004).

• 61 percent supported, and 27 percent opposed, school vouchers allowing parents to move their children from under-performing schools to more successful schools (Sacred Heart University 2005).

• 63 percent supported "allowing poor parents to be given the tax dollars allotted for their child's education and permitting them to use those dollars in the form of a scholarship to attend a private, public or parochial school of their choosing" (Zogby 2002).

• 53 percent agreed, and 42 percent disagreed, that "the federal government should set aside public funds for students enrolled in public schools that are considered to be failing; the money will then be used to pay for the students to attend their choice of public, private, or parochial school" (Zogby 2002).

• 51 percent favored, and 40 percent disfavored, the idea of school vouchers to help send children to private or parochial schools (Associated Press 2002).

• 69 percent supported vouchers even if public schools got less money: "What if that meant the public schools in your community would receive less money, then would you agree or disagree that parents should get taxfunded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their children to attend private or religious schools instead of public schools?" (CBS/New York Times 2001).

• 54 percent said yes, and 38 percent said no, when asked: "Would vouchers improve the public school system?" (CNN/USA Today/Gallup 2001).

• Five polls using various question wording all found support for vouchers in 2000:
  • 64 percent agreed, and 34 percent disagreed, that "parents should have the option of sending their children to religious schools instead of public schools using 'vouchers' or 'credits' provided by the government that would pay for some or all costs" (University of Connecticut).
  • 56 percent preferred the position that "government should give parents more educational choices by providing taxpayer-funded vouchers to help pay for private or religious schools," compared to 38 percent who preferred the position that "government funding should be limited to public schools" (NBC/Wall Street Journal).
  • 53 percent favored, and 44 percent opposed, "federal funding for vouchers to help low- and middle-income parents send their children to private and parochial schools" (Pew/Princeton Associates).
  • 50 percent favored, and 45 percent opposed, "establishing a school voucher program that would allow parents to use tax funds to send their children to a private school" (University of Maryland).
  • 49 percent favored, and 47 percent opposed, "providing parents with tax money in the form of school vouchers to help pay for their children to attend private or religious schools" (Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard University).

Unfortunately, not all polls are created equal – some use slanted questions that produce biased fi ndings. The most frequently cited education poll, the annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll, contains a voucher question that has been proven to be extremely sensitive to small changes in wording. In 2004 and 2005, the Friedman Foundation commissioned a poll that asked 500 people the PDK/Gallup question, and 500 people the same question with two small changes. The results shifted dramatically both times – by 22 and 23 points, respectively.

The methodological problems of the PDK/Gallup voucher question were originally documented by Terry Moe of Stanford University in the Spring 2002 and Fall 2002 issues of the academic journal Education Next.

Many other polls are equally questionable. In Florida, one poll produced the appearance of 61 percent opposition to vouchers by misleadingly defining "vouchers" as "giving state funds to private schools" (St. Petersburg Times 2006). Another poll taken in the same month, which didn't defi ne what vouchers are but simply asked whether people supported the governor's proposed voucher legislation, found 48 percent supported it and 41 percent opposed it (Tampa Tribune 2006).

In Utah, one poll found 54 percent opposed to vouchers "for parents who send their children to private schools," a description that would lead many respondents to think that vouchers would only go to parents who currently send their children to private schools (Desert Morning News 2005). Another poll taken only three months later, by the same polling company, said that "some have proposed that the government provide a certain amount of money for each child's education. The parents can then send the child to any public, parochial, or private school they choose. This is called the 'voucher system'"; this poll found 56 percent favored vouchers and 24 percent opposed them (Brigham Young University 2006).

Conclusion: A majority of the American public supports school choice. Most important, parents of all backgrounds support school choice, because they know it is best for their children.

Do a wide spectrum of Americans want school choice?

Yes, they do! Contrary to the myth propagated by teachers' unions, school choice has a broad base of support across all points on the political spectrum and among people of all backgrounds.

It's true that the guardians of the education status quo have bought themselves a lot of influence in the Democratic Party. But more and more Democrats are seeing past the propaganda and realizing that the government school monopoly is the single biggest obstacle to their goals of social justice and empowerment of the poor. Milton Friedman himself says that "vouchers should have been a Democratic proposal."

In the past few years we have seen this trend bear fruit in the increasing number of Democratic politicians who support school choice – either out of conviction or because too many of their own Democratic constituents are choice supporters for them to keep resisting it. The first high-profi le instance was in 2004 when Congress enacted school vouchers for Washington D.C. with the support of both Democratic city officials, including Mayor Anthony Williams, and national Democratic leaders like Diane Feinstein and Joe Lieberman. In 2005, Ohio enacted a new voucher program sponsored by Democratic Rep. Dixie Allen, while Missouri debated a prominent school choice proposal supported by a number of top state Democrats.

But 2006 marked an irreversible turning point. First, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) signed a big expansion of the Milwaukee voucher program. Then Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) allowed the creation of a tax-credit scholarship program. Later she signed two new voucher programs into law, and also doubled the size of the new scholarship program, throwing in a provision expanding it by 20 percent every year through 2010 for good measure. In Iowa, a new tax-credit scholarship program gained overwhelming Democratic support. The state Senate, divided exactly in half between Republicans and Democrats, passed it by 49-1; the House, where Republicans have only a one-vote majority, passed it by 75-19; and Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) signed it into law. Rhode Island's Democratic Senate passed, and Gov. Don Carcieri (D) signed, a provision creating a new tax-credit scholarship program. Finally, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) signed a $10 million expansion of his state's tax-credit scholarship program.

After this banner year, trying to maintain the myth that Democrats can't support school choice will be like trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

School choice also has diverse popular support. Polls show that Hispanic Americans want school choice:

• 57 percent of Hispanic Americans supported "allowing low-income parents to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to place their kids in private or church-run schools" (Latino Coalition 2003).

• 52 percent of Hispanic Americans agreed, and 39 percent disagreed, that "parents should get tax-funded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their children to attend private or religious schools instead of public schools (CBS/New York Times 2003).

• 64 percent of Hispanic Americans supported "allowing poor parents to be given the tax dollars allotted for their child's education and permitting them to use those dollars in the form of a scholarship to attend a private, public or parochial school of their choosing" (Zogby 2002).
  
  Polls also show that African Americans want school choice:
  • 77 percent of African Americans supported school vouchers allowing parents to move their children from under-performing schools to more successful schools (Sacred Heart University 2005).
  • 72 percent of African Americans supported "allowing poor parents to be given the tax dollars allotted for their child's education and permitting them to use those dollars in the form of a scholarship to attend a private, public or parochial school of their choosing" (Zogby 2002).
  • 57 percent of African Americans supported, and 43 percent opposed, "a voucher system where parents would get money from the government to send their children to the public, private, or parochial school of their choice" (Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies 2002).

Conclusion: School choice has strong support across political and demographic groups, because it brings together all people who want to empower parents and students rather than a government school bureaucracy.

Is school choice constitutional?

If the program is well designed, it probably is! This question was answered resoundingly in 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision upholding the constitutionality of Cleveland's voucher program. By a 5-4 vote, the justices made it very clear that when an individual uses public funds to make a private choice – in this case when a parent uses a voucher to send his or her child to a private school, including religious schools – it does not violate the First Amendment. As Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained in the majority opinion, voucher programs such as Cleveland's are "neutral in respect to religion (because they) provide assistance directly to a broad class of citizens, who, in turn, direct government aid to religious schools wholly as a result of their own genuine and independent private choice."

This landmark decision is in line with a long series of high-court decisions. For example, in 1983 the court upheld Minnesota's income tax deduction for educational expenses, including private-school tuition. In 1993, the court unanimously upheld the use of public funds by a blind student pursuing a divinity degree at a religious college. Moreover, the court did not strike down the G.I. Bill or Pell grants, both of which are voucher programs allowing college students to attend the public or private school of their choice, including religious colleges.

While recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings favor vouchers, some state constitutions also have language prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to support religious schools.

However, as the Institute for Justice argues, "many court decisions interpret state constitutions to parallel the First Amendment. If so, the recent First Amendment cases discussed above should control state constitutional interpretation. If the state constitutional provision is more restrictive, advocates may have to challenge such restrictions under the federal constitution."

In the end, whether or not voucher or school choice legislation is constitutional depends on how well the bill is designed. If parents make a truly private choice of which school their child attends, if there is no fi nancial incentive to attend a religious school over a non-religious school and if the program does not allow undue government interference with religious schools, chances are the bill will be looked on favorably by the court.

Conclusion: Rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court strongly favor school choice. Because parents make a truly independent choice of where to send their children to school, there is no violation of the U.S. Constitution if they freely choose religious schools.

Does school choice help special-education students?

Definitely. Providing school choice to special-education students allows families unhappy with their assigned public school to fi nd a program that meets their child's individual needs. The McKay program in Florida is used by more than 15,000 of the state's special-education students. A 2003 Manhattan Institute study by Jay Greene and Greg Forster found that:

• 93 percent of McKay participants are satisfi ed with their McKay schools, while only 33 percent were similarly satisfi ed with their public schools.

• Only 30 percent of current participants say they received all services required under federal law from their previous public schools, while 86 percent say their McKay schools provide all the services they promised to provide.

• 47 percent of participants were bothered often and 25 percent were physically assaulted at their previous public schools because of their disabilities, compared to 5 percent bothered often and 6 percent assaulted in McKay schools.

• More than 90 percent of former McKay participants who have left the program said the McKay program should continue to be available for those who wish to use it.

The success of the Florida program and growing desire of parents wanting options for their special-needs children have led to the creation of a similar program in Utah and consideration in several other states.

Conclusion: School choice for special education allows parents to fi nd a school that matches their child’s individual needs. The evidence shows that disabled students using school choice are getting better services.

Does school choice really lead to more integrated schools?

Years of teacher-union propaganda have conditioned the public to think that private schools are more segregated than public schools. However, the best available studies show that the opposite is true. Private school classrooms are more integrated than public school classrooms, and school-choice programs put kids into more integrated schools.

Our nation's public schools are heavily segregated. According to a Harvard University study, "more than 70 percent of the nation's black students now attend predominately minority (public) schools." Public schools are so segregated primarily because of residential segregation. Attendance at public schools is determined by where people live, which guarantees that segregation in housing patterns will always be reproduced in public schools. Desegregation efforts have largely failed because they are geographically limited; white families who move to the suburbs can't legally be forced to bus their children across municipal lines.

Private schools, by contrast, can draw students from anywhere. In fact, because they offer a superior education and other attractions that parents want for their children but can't get at public schools, private schools typically draw from a much larger geographic area than public schools. That means private schools can mitigate the effects of residential segregation in a way public schools can't match. What's more, the superior desirability of private schools gives parents a reason to overcome any qualms they may have about desegregation. Because private schools are better, parents are more likely to trust them to handle the challenges of a multiracial classroom environment. For these and other reasons, private schools succeed at integrating where public schools fail.

Many studies that purport to measure segregation in schools use inadequate methods, such as failing to adopt an objective standard of what counts as "segregation." There have been only seven studies comparing segregation in voucher-participating private schools to segregation in public schools using valid empirical methods. All seven find that students using vouchers are attending private schools that are less segregated than the public schools they would otherwise attend:

• A 2006 Friedman Foundation study found that private schools participating in the Milwaukee voucher program are 13 points less segregated than Milwaukee public schools on a "segregation index" that compares the racial composition of each school to the composition of the greater metro area.

• A 2002 Marquette University study found that Milwaukee public school students were more likely to attend racially homogeneous schools than voucher students, both in elementary schools (58 v. 50 percent) and secondary schools (44 v. 29 percent).

• This result confi rmed Marquette University studies in 1999 and 2000 that produced similar fi ndings.

• A 2006 Friedman Foundation study found that private schools participating in Cleveland's voucher program are 18 points less segregated than Cleveland public schools on the segregation index.

• A 1999 University of Texas-Austin study found that among Cleveland elementary and middle school students, public school students were less likely than voucher students to attend schools whose racial composition was similar to that of the metro area (5 v. 19 percent) and more likely to attend racially homogeneous schools (61 v. 50 percent).

• A 2005 Manhattan Institute study found that Washington D.C. public schools differ from the racial composition of the metro area by a greater amount than private schools participating in the city's voucher program (40 v. 34 percentage points) and that public school students are more likely to attend racially homogenous schools than voucher students (85 v. 47 percent).

Conclusion: Contrary to the claims of opponents, school choice leads to more integrated schools. Research shows that children using school choice attend more integrated schools than their public school counterparts.