School choice doesn’t automatically mean every child will be an educational success, but evidence from other nations certainly suggests it means better overall performance. Sweden, Chile, and the Netherlands are just some of the countries that have seen good results after breaking up state-run education monopolies.
The same is true in the United States. When parents have some ability to select schools, this generates competitive pressure for better results. This is true even in sub-optimal instances where the choice is merely among different government-run schools. as illustrated by the abstract of a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
We study the impact of a public school choice lottery in Charlotte-Mecklenburg (CMS) on postsecondary attainment. We match CMS administrative records to the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), a nationwide database of college enrollment. Among applicants with low-quality neighborhood schools, lottery winners are more likely than lottery losers to graduate from high school, attend a four-year college, and earn a bachelor’s degree. They are twice as likely to earn a degree from an elite university. The results suggest that school choice can improve students’ longer-term life chances when they gain access to schools that are better on observed dimensions of quality.
But real competition should involve private schools. Here’s the video from last year about why comprehensive school choice is good news for education.
School choice is one of the few issues where I’m optimistic. If we’re beginning to make progress even in places such as California and New Orleans, we’re obviously winning. No wonder the teacher unions are sounding so shrill.
