Celebrating, Demanding School Choice

"More than 11,000 rallies and events focusing on school choice are planned this week across the country" to celebrate National School Choice Week (NSCW), reports Mary Lou Byrd.

Economist Milton Friedman first advanced the concept of K-12 education vouchers — a system in which education tax dollars are attached to each child and follow each child to the public or private school of his/her choice.

His rationale was simple: the American public school system is a government monopoly. As happens with all monopolies, public school performance and quality are in decline, and American children as a group are falling behind their peers in other nations.

Introduce competition in K-12 education (as most other industrialized nations have), and the U.S. will (a) erase the inequality of educational opportunity between rich and poor children (i.e., between children whose families can afford private schools and children whose families can not), and (b) vastly improve the quality of education delivered by all American schools, especially government public schools. Moreover, he asserted, competition will cause public schools to become more efficient.  It will apply much-needed brakes to out-of-control public education costs, since private schools typically deliver a higher quality education at about half the cost of public schools.



School choice experiments that began in the 1980s have proven Friedman correct in his assessment of expanded equality, equal opportunity, and cost-containment. Public school systems even began opening "public charter schools" as an alternative to the assigned neighborhood public school in hopes of keeping parents from choosing private school options. For all the right reasons, school choice has expanded in the U.S.

The Institute for Justice, one advocate of school choice that has "defended every major lawsuit filed against school choice programs by teachers' unions and other opponents," told the Washington Free Beacon this week,

School choice is on the rise like never before. There are now over 50 school-choice programs in 25 states that give parents both public and private school options, and about half of those programs have been enacted in just the past five years. ... [S]tate legislatures are increasingly heeding the demands of parents, many of whom are unsatisfied with the performance of their children's assigned public schools and want other options. 

Public opinion on this issue is with the parents.

A new poll released ahead of School Choice Week shows a majority of Americans‐69 percent—favors the concept of school choice. The poll, released by the American Federation for children, another partner of NSCW, also showed 63 percent support private school choice, 76 percent support public charter schools, and 65 percent believe choice and competition among schools improve education.

For all its expansion to date, however, school choice is still available to only a small percentage of the entire K-12 student population. While NSCW's celebration is certainly warranted for the gains that have been made, it also serves as a encouraging reminder of the work that remains to make Friedman's universal school choice vision a reality for all children in the U.S.

"School Reform Gets Cool"

"A whole lot of 20- and 30-somethings across the political spectrum now believe something’s seriously flawed in our public-education system," writes Naomi Schaefer Riley. Why the sea-change?

• Teach for America has for decades place recent graduates from top colleges — some 28,000 to date — as teachers in some of the nation's worst schools. "The incompetence and corruption are hard to forget," and "they talk about it to their peers, too."
• Urban areas are looking attractive to hip younger people who are marrying and starting families, and the terrible state of urban schools presents a roadblock to be challenged and overcome.
• Teachers unions are looking like dinosaurs bent on protecting undeserving members while preventing kids from getting a decent education.
• Vouchers, charter schools, and parent-trigger laws have become "the hot cause of the millennial generation."

"Finally," concludes Riley, "a popular trend worth getting behind."

Confidence in Public Schools Hits New Low

"Americans' confidence in public schools is down five percentage points from last year," reports Gallup, "with 29% expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in them." The chart below shows the near continuous decline in public confidence over the past 40 years of Gallup's tracking.

The low confidence level will surprise no one except perhaps the teachers union, given U.S. students' downward spiral in international math and science achievement comparisons, and it should greatly encourage those who have long advocated universal school choice and an open, free market in K-12 education. 

School Choice Could Help States Balance Budgets

"Nearly all of America's 50 states are facing budget deficits," writes education professor William Jeynes, who maintains that education spending, which consumes nearly 50% of state budgets, is the biggest driver of those deficits. Since private schools operate at roughly 60% of public schools' per student costs, "states would save money by implementing programs that pay for children to attend these schools instead of more expensive public ones."