Ben Scafidi

Ben Scafidi is a professor of economics and director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University. He is also a Friedman fellow with EdChoice and the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. His research has focused on education and urban policy.

Reasons the Public Education System Has Become Increasingly Centralized

Beyond just the consolidation of America’s school districts I outlined previously, there have been four sizable waves that have eroded public schools’ abilities to differentiate themselves in order to provide real alternatives for consumers of K–12 education. This decrease in educational diversity in the public education system is not consistent with the desires of parents who have a variety […]

Standardized Tests: States Should Let Parents Decide

parent choice standardized tests

Adam Emerson of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute makes some reasonable-sounding arguments as to why states should require private school choice students to continue taking state standardized tests. As supporters of school choice, Adam and I are seated at the same table—we just disagree on who sets the menu. Parents care about more than scores. […]

The Decline of “Voting with Your Feet” in American Public School Districts

Historically, American public school districts have been governed by locally appointed or elected school boards, and families (mostly) have been free to live in whatever school district they wished. Several decades ago, this system provided a large degree of choice for many families, but over the past 70 years, choice among public school districts has […]