Yesterday’s column celebrated the amazing expansion of school choice, a trend that seems unstoppable.
One reason for my optimism is that government schools have been given buckets of money, but there’s never any improvement.
All the cash winds up leading to more bureaucracy rather than better educational outcomes.
Another reason is that we are accumulating more and more evidence that school choice is the way to help students learn more and perform better (see here, here, here, and here).
Today, let’s look at some new evidence, courtesy of two recent editorials from the Wall Street Journal.
Here are excerpts from the editorial about what has happened in Ohio.
A study released Tuesday by researchers at the Urban Institute found that students who used vouchers to attend private school saw substantially improved long-term academic outcomes. Ohio’s Educational Choice Scholarship Program began in 2005 as a state-funded voucher program for students in lousy public schools. In 2013-14 it began to serve low-income students regardless of school. …Researchers Matthew Chingos, David Figlio and Krzysztof Karbownik studied more than 6,000 Ohio students who first used EdChoice scholarships to attend private schools between 2008 and 2014. They compared this group with more than 500,000 students who remained in public schools, selecting for similar demographics and academic characteristics. Scholarship recipients were found to be 15 percentage points more likely to attend college than public school counterparts, and nine points more likely to graduate. Students in the program for at least four years—about 60% of participants—had even higher college enrollment and graduation rates. …Groups that benefited the most were blacks, boys, students who experienced long-term childhood poverty, and students with below-median test scores before leaving public school. The rate of college enrollment among black scholarship recipients increased 18 percentage points.
And here are passages from the editorial about Indiana’s program.
Indiana has been a leader in expanding school choice for K-12 students, and better student achievement results have followed. …Gov. Mike Braun last week signed a budget that opens school choice to every Hoosier girl and boy. …Indiana first launched vouchers and expanded charters during a period of enthusiastic reform under former Gov. Mitch Daniels in the 2010s… More than 20% of the state’s students attend a school other than the public one for which they’re zoned, and the shift has accelerated since 2020. The difference for students is clear. Indiana eighth-graders ranked sixth in the nation in reading scores in the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, up from 19th in 2022. The state’s fourth-graders jumped 11 spots in the same assessment and now also rank sixth nationwide.
What we are seeing in these two Midwestern states is not a surprise.
Of course the private sector is more efficient than the government. Of course the private sector delivers better results for less money.
I’ll close with the observation that school choice is a litmus test for the left. As far as I’m concerned, they are bad people if they put the self-interest of teacher unions above the needs of students and parents.
Dan Mitchell is co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and Chairman of the Board. He is an expert in international tax competition and supply-side tax policy.
