School choice
School choice is the slogan of a U.S. movement to introduce competitive markets into the primary and secondary education sectors.School choice could be accomplished in multiple ways. The method considered "milder" is to allow parents to choose between different public schools. The method considered more "sweeping" is to grant parents the option of spending voucherss or tax credits at private (or possibly religious) schools. In this case, public schools would not receive funding for those pupils who did not choose to attend.
The economic theory in favor of "educational choice" is that parents and students are strongly concerned with the quality of education received by students. Therefore, if given a choice, they will seek out the best educational institution they can afford. Tax credits would enable tax payers to have more educational options. Vouchers would extend this choice to the poorest members of society by subsidizing their choices with public money that would have gone to public schools. A mild form of school choice, with increasingly wide endorsement, is to provide parents with choices between various public schools.
The primary criticism is that diverting money from public schools cannot make them better. Most people in the U.S. also want to be sure than the public gets its money's worth. Critics charge that the assumptions are false: It is said that neither parents nor children are qualified to evaluate educational systems. Also, critics say that commercial schools will be organized for maximum profit, rather than for most effective learning, and therefore the costs will be high, and the education no better than existing public schools. Furthermore, parents who have more of an interest in the success of their children's education are essentially trying to push their children out of the 'poor apathetic class' into the 'middle class'. Critics suggest that voucher based schools is an efficient way of further separating the classes.
These concerns are met by providing choice between public schools. However most school choice activists want more. They specifically want non-governmental schools included in the choices, often to obtain religious instruction.
This leads to a further discussion concerning whether it is moral to force people of one religion to fund (via taxes and redistribution) education in another religion's schools. It turns out that a large majority of parents favor this, whether or not they think it is legally possible. (See reference at the end.)
Most persons consider a tax credit for private education to be morally acceptable, because the money comes from the parents' taxes. In the U.S., this argument has been accepted by federal judges, and is law.
In the U.S., the legal and moral precedents for vouchers may have been set by the G.I. bill, which includes a voucher program for university-level education of veterans. The G.I. bill permits veterans to take their educational benefits at religious schools, an extremely divisive issue when applied to primary and secondary schools. Voucher systems for primary schools have also quietly operated in some New Hampshire school districts since education became mandatory in the 19th century.
The political lines are drawn between several groups:
Public teachers' unions are implacable foes of vouchers, and only reluctantly accepting other forms of school choice. They also contribute large amounts to politicians. This is believed to be because the unions would face great losses of membership were vouchers to become universal. It is both fair and accurate to say that many public schools appear to be doing an adequate job.
Most middle-class parents are mildly satisfied with their public schools, but think that private schools would be better. Many of these people chose their residence based on the quality of schools, and so have already engaged in an expensive form of school choice.
There is a small coterie of libertarians that originated and strongly support vouchers with a miniumum of public regulation, however they are a tiny, politically-impotent minority of the public.
Inner-city parents without such options and with underperforming schools are dissatisified with their schools, but many also have lowered expectations, and considerable apathy. A growing number of inner city parents are pushing for vouchers, with regulated schools, for underprivileged children, as a workable educational reform. In many areas, wealthy persons are funding private voucher programs as opening wedges, demonstration projects intended to prove that school choice works. Early returns indicate that these improve outcomes, though not as well as reformers had hoped.
Vouchers in the U.S. for underprivileged children are viewed as experiments, and the issue has yet to be conclusively decided.
In Chile there is a vouchers systems in which the State pays directly to private schools based on recruitment. These schools show consistently better results in standarized testing than state schools (municipal).
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