• School Choice Improves Public Education
• Students Do Better When Parents Choose
• School Choice Serves “At Risk” Kids
• Public School Funding Benefits from School Choice
• School Choice Remedies Racial Segregation
• School Choice Uses Tax Dollars Efficiently
• How Are Charter Schools Performing?

School Choice Improves Public Education

Florida
In Florida – where students are eligible for vouchers if their public school fails to meet academic standards in successive years – academic gains were greatest in those schools faced with losing students to vouchers. For example, these schools improved approximately 5 percentile points more in math than other poorly performing schools whose students were not eligible.

Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters, “Competition Passes the Test,” Education Next, Summer 2004 - Read Full Article

Another Florida study found that the close proximity of public charter schools to traditional public schools has led to academic gains in the traditional public schools.*

Tim R. Sass,“Charter Schools and Student Achievement in Florida,” Education Finance and Policy,Vol. 1,No. 1,Winter 2006 - Read Full Article

Milwaukee
In Milwaukee, schools that were most exposed to voucher competition increased math scores by 7.1 percentile points between 1999 and 2000, compared to 3.7 percentile points for schools not exposed to the challenge, with similar gains in science and language.

Caroline Minter Hoxby, “The Rising Tide,” Education Next, Winter 2001 - Read Full Article

Studies with similar results:

Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster, “Rising to the Challenge: The Effect of School Choice on Public Schools in Milwaukee and San Antonio”

Manhattan Institute Civic Bulletin 27, October 2002 - Read Full Article

Charter Schools
In Arizona Hoxby finds that municipalities that faced the most competition from charters made annual improvement of 3 percentile points on 4th grade math scores compared to 1 percentile point gain for those facing no charter challenge.  This trend would close the achievement gap between Phoenix and its suburbs in under 10 years.  In Michigan Hoxby finds that districts facing serious competition from charters had scores that climbed by 2.4 scale points more per year in 4th grade reading and 2.5 scale points more per year in 4th grade math than districts that did not face competition.  If this trend continued the gap between Detroit and Grosse Point’s score’s would close in under two decades.

Caroline Minter Hoxby, “The Rising Tide,” Education Next, Winter 2001. - Read Full Article

Competition Between School Districts
Hoxby finds that a one standard deviation increase in school district competition produces a 17% decrease in per pupil spending and a 3 percentile improvement in test scores.  Greene and Winters confirm these positive effects, finding higher graduation rates when school districts are made smaller.

Caroline M. Hoxby, “Analyzing School Choice Reforms,” in Learning from School Choice, Peterson and Hassel, eds, Brookings, 1998

Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters, “The Effect of Residential School Choice on Public High School Graduation Rates,” Education Working Paper 9, April 2005. - Read Full Article

Belfield and Levin’s Review of the Research Literature
After reviewing more than 200 analyses they conclude that “a sizable majority of these studies report beneficial effects of competition across all outcomes, with many reporting statistically significant correlations,” and “The above evidence shows reasonably consistent evidence of a link between competition (choice) and education quality. Increased competition and higher educational quality are positively correlated.”

See Clive R. Belfield and Henry M. Levin, “The Effects of Competition on Educational Outcomes: A Review of US Evidence,” National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, March 2002, pp. 2, 11. - Read Full Article

Studies with Similar Results

Martin West and Paul Peterson, “The Efficacy of Choice Threats Within School Accountability Systems,”

Harvard PEPG Working Paper 05-01, March 23, 2005. - Read Full Article

Rajashri Chakrabarti, “Impact of Voucher Design on Public School Performance: Evidence from Florida and Milwaukee Voucher Programs,” Working Paper. - Read Full Article

David N. Figlio and Cecilia Elena Rouse, “Do Accountability and Voucher Threats Improve Low-Performing Schools?” NBER Working Paper No. 11597. - Read Full Article

Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster, “Rising to the Challenge: The Effect of School Choice on Public Schools in Milwaukee and San Antonio”

Manhattan Institute Civic Bulletin 27, October 2002 - Read Full Article

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Students Do Better When Parents Choose

Studies from around the nation reveal that students in choice programs do better in school, including a 6 percentile gain in reading and an 11 percentile gain in math after four years in Milwaukee, to a 9.2 percentile gain overall in two years for African-American students accessing a private scholarship program in Washington, DC.

Public charter schools are usually among the top performers in big-city school districts, like New York and Indianapolis.*  One study found that charter students are 3-5% more likely to be proficient than students in neighboring traditional public schools*

Elizabeth Green, “New York City Charters Outperform,” The New York Sun, May 29, 2007 - Read Full Article

David Skinner, “Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson,” Education Next, Summer 2007 - Read Full Article

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School Choice Serves “At Risk” Kids

School choice appeals to the families of students who struggle in school much more so than the “best and brightest.  ”This make sense since most parents wouldn’t move a child who was doing well. 

School choice students had been among the worst performers in their traditional public schools, nearly five points worse in reading and seven in math. In addition, “choice schools” serve a greater percentage of kids from minority and low-income families than do traditional public schools.*

Hoxby, Harvard University

Howell andWest, “Gray Lady Wheezing,” Education Next,Winter 2005 - Read Full Article

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Public School Funding Benefits from School Choice

Full funding, partnered with accountability and parental choice, is key to strengthening public schools.

Per-pupil funding is twice as much as it was 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation, with no improvement in performance.*  With choice, parents can now hold schools accountable for the dollars used to educate their children. 

Education Myths: What Special Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools—And Why It Isn't So, Jay Greene - Read Full Article

School funding and school choice work hand-in-hand. By definition, choice gives public schools more money to focus on fewer kids, and total state spending on public schools in states with school choice programs has always increased.  In Milwaukee’s public schools, per-pupil funding has increased 28% in the short time since choice programs were enacted there.*

School Choice Wisconsin, February 2007 Report - Read Full Article

Susan L. Aud, Ph.D., “Education by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effects of School Choice Programs, 1990 – 2006,” School Choice Issues in Depth, April 2007 - Read Full Article

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School Choice Remedies Racial Segregation

School Choice gives students more racially diverse environments. In Washington D.C. public schools 85.4% of students attend racially homogeneous schools compared to 47.3% of students attending D.C. private schools using vouchers.

Greene and Winters, The Georgetown University and Manhattan Institute School Choice Demonstration Project, January, 2006 - Read Full Article

Other Studies

Private School Classrooms are Better Integrated than Public School Classrooms

55% of public school 12th graders are in racially homogenous classrooms compared to 41% of private school 12th graders Jay P. Greene, “Civic Values in Public and Private Schools,” in Learning from School Choice, Peterson and Hassel, eds, Brookings, 1998.

Private School Lunchrooms are Better Integrated than Public School Lunchrooms

79% of private school students sit in racially mixed groups during lunch compared to 43% of public school students Jay P. Greene and Nicole Mellow, “Integration Where it Counts,” Texas Education Review, Spring 2000. - Read Full Article

Voucher Students Attend Less Segregated Schools

61% of Cleveland metro area public school students attend racially homogenous schools compared to 50% of students attending Cleveland private schools receiving vouchers Jay P. Greene, “Choice and Community: The Racial, Economic, and Religious Context of Parental Choice in Cleveland,” Buckeye Institute, November 1999.

58% of Milwaukee public elementary school students attend racially homogenous schools compared to 38% of Catholic elementary school students

Howard Fuller and George Mitchell, “The Impact of School Choice on Racial and Ethnic Enrollment in Milwaukee Private Schools,” Current Education Issue, no. 99-5, December 1999

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School Choice Uses Tax Dollars Efficiently

In Milwaukee, the public pays over $10,000 per child in public school, but only $6,000 to educate a child exercising school choice, leaving more money per pupil in the public schools. In Washington, D.C., the public pays over $15,000 per child in public schools, but no more than $7,500 per child exercising school choice.

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How Are Charter Schools Performing?

Charter schools are raising the bar about what's possible - and what should be expected - in public education. . Charter schools are usually among the top performers in big-city school districts, and often rival the highest-performing schools in surrounding suburban districts. These high performers are setting important examples about what public schools can achieve with disadvantaged students. They're shattering low expectations and breaking through long-standing barriers that have prevented large numbers of at-risk students from achieving educational success. [National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, "The Renaissance of Urban Education: Charter Schools in America's Cities," 2006; Chicago Public Schools, "Charter Schools Performance Report: 2003-04," 2005 [Read Full Article]; Illinois State Board of Education, "Illinois Charter School Annual Report," 2006; Indianapolis Mayor's Office of Charter Schools, "Analysis of Changes in ISTEP+ Performance 2003-2005," Unpublished manuscript, 2006; Peter Simon, "Charters Outperform Buffalo City Schools," The Buffalo News, October 30, 2005] .

More and more data indicate that charter schools deliver promising results for student achievement. In an analysis of almost three dozen charter school studies, a vast majority found that overall gains in charter schools were larger than other public schools, sometimes in certain significant categories of schools, such as elementary schools, high schools, or schools serving at risk students. [National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, "Charter Achievement: What Do We Know (Third Edition)," 2006.] .

Charter schools improve with age. In a review of 12 studies that examined whether individual charter schools improve their performance with age (e.g. after overcoming start-up challenges), nine found that as charter schools mature, they improve. [National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, "Charter Achievement: What Do We Know (Third Edition)," 2006.]

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