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“…[I]t may surprise you to learn that in a growing number of states, legislators are setting aside public money to pay for private school tuition – and rich people are benefiting,” Valerie Strauss wrote last year on The Washington Post’s website. Actually, the WaPo education writer’s class-warfare demagoguery should surprise readers more, particularly when it is […]
A recent Huffington Post article took the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) to task for how some MPCP students with special needs are being treated in their schools. First, to be clear, author Shayna Pitre cited an inaccurate number that voucher opponents have propped up for years when attacking the nation’s first modern school choice […]
In 1979, there were 9,640 Catholic schools in the United States. By 2011, there were 6,841. That decline has been caused by a number of factors, each of which is worth exploring further—as are the policies that can contribute to their possible resurrection. From 2001 to 2011, the number of private Catholic schools decreased at […]
…consider the alternative! President Obama has yet again omitted funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program in his recently proposed 2015 education budget. Although his reasoning is likely more philosophical than financial, his decision makes analyzing the fiscal effects of opposing school choice worthwhile. Data from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) show that taxpayers are […]
Earlier this week, the Miami Herald editorialized against the proposed expansion of the highly popular Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program. The law allows businesses to receive tax credits for contributing to nonprofit scholarship funding organizations (SFOs) that aid low-income students to attend the school of their parents’ choice. Florida’s sole SFO, Step Up For Students, issued […]
The holy grail of research is the causal claim. That is, if you can prove that A causes B, not that A is related to B or that A is similar to B, you can cure diseases, create rockets that leave our atmosphere, and design social programs that help people live better lives. In medicine, […]
The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) reported that 39.3 percent of voucher recipients (7,779 students) were never previously enrolled in public schools in Indiana, implying that these vouchers are an additional fiscal cost to the state because, as many are interpreting it, “those kids would have paid their way to a private school with or without […]
An ambitious school choice proposal is on the table in Oklahoma. Last week, state legislators introduced a bill to create an education savings account system (ESA) for low- and middle-income students. (See a short video of the press conference and an explanation of how ESAs work.) The proposal is bigger than Arizona’s ESA program, a […]
Centralization in public schools through school district consolidation was pitched as a way to save administrative costs in American public schools. Instead, public school administration has mirrored the trend of virtually every other government input: growth. Such centralization has contributed to a decrease in the ability of parents to “vote with their feet” for better […]
Milton Friedman said if the traditional public schools are as good as its defenders claim, they shouldn’t be afraid of competition. In a similar vein, some school choice supporters argue that if private schools are performing well then they shouldn’t fear state standardized tests. Such is the implication of a new policy toolkit released yesterday by […]