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By Root 202 0

local authorities, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and individuals give directly to families to enable them to send their children to the private schools of their choice. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that parents of public school children, when granted vouchers, can enroll their children in parochial schools, provided that is the parents’ choice. Cleveland, Milwaukee, Washington, DC, and Florida have publicly funded vouchers. The Utah legislature recently passed a statewide voucher bill, which is to eventually serve all K-12 students. Nonpublic organizations and individuals in about 50 cities provide private vouchers, mostly for poor and minority children to attend parochial and nonsectarian independent schools. Parents in several states have sought vouchers as a form of legal relief from repeatedly failing public schools (most recently, in New Jersey and Atlanta, Georgia).

Chapter 4 describes private schools, which generally fall into one of two categories, each of which has several names that are taken as synonymous here: (1) independent or nonsectarian and (2) religious, sectarian, or parochial. While private schools are largely funded and governed privately, they are government regulated to some extent and may in the United States receive small amounts of public funds for such things as transportation, tutoring, and children in poverty. This chapter has little to say about for-profit schools and homeschooling, since research on them does not meet the standards mentioned above. Both types of private schooling are very interesting, nevertheless, and over time may have valuable lessons to teach.

Chapter 5 summarizes the effects of school choice on the achievement of all students within a given geopolitical area (such as a city or state). Although some educators fear competitors would lure only the best students from underperforming public schools, and lower average achievement in public schools, economists might predict the opposite: that competition would enhance performance, efficiency, and consumer satisfaction in public as well as private schools. The ways to test this idea include examining whether the presence of many private schools in a city or county is positively correlated with test scores in traditional public schools, whether countries that rapidly introduce vouchers nationwide see better performance and satisfaction, and whether those countries see increased socioeconomic isolation of students or for-profit firms taking advantage of ill-informed immigrant parents. Such plausible ideas should be put to factual test.

Chapter 6 analyzes recent national public opinion polls about public and private schools and privatization policies as well as school-specific surveys of charter and voucher parents. Since schools are to serve society or the public in general and parents in particular, it would seem reasonable to ask the public and parents. As documented in Chapter 6, surveys reveal that the public has strong opinions about school competition, funding, and accountability; and parents often have similarly intense opinions about their own children’s schools. To gain an understanding of choice and market effects, these views and opinions need to be taken into account.

Chapter 7 gathers the themes from the foregoing chapters, each with its separate sources of evidence. It summarizes general conclusions that seem warranted from the most rigorous research.

2. Charter School Effects

Charter schools have multiplied rapidly in the United States as a result of parental demand and state legislation.1 The first charter schools opened in Minnesota in 1992, and as of 2006 there were roughly 4,000 operating in 40 states and the District of Columbia, enrolling about one million students. This chapter assembles the most rigorous evidence on six different aspects of charter schools:

• their popularity,

• their performance relative to traditional government schools,

• the achievement gains of their students,

• their effect on achievement in nearby traditional public schools,

• public and parental knowledge