Educational choice maximizes freedom, respects pluralism, reduces costs and empowers the poor. It works!
School choice programs:
Improve academic outcomes for participants and public schools.
- Fourteen of 18 random assignment studies show choice participants’ proficiency scores improved as a result of using a private school voucher or scholarship.
- 31 of 33 studies found that the competitive effects driven by school choice programs led to improvement in public schools’ academic performance.
Move students from more racially segregated schools to more integrated schools.
- A majority of families involved in publicly funded school choice programs come from low-income communities.
- Charter schools and voucher programs improve a student’s chances of graduating from high school and enrolling in college, with the greatest benefits concentrated among urban minority students.
Save taxpayers and school districts millions, even billions, of dollars.
- Estimates show school voucher programs alone have saved more than $1.7 billion, or $3,400 per voucher per student on average, which could then be used to boost per-pupil funding in public schools, pay off debt or bolster other public programs.
Improve tolerance and civic participation among students.
- Eight of 11 empirical studies show that choice programs increase students’ tolerance for the rights of others and the likelihood to vote, volunteer, or give more to charity than their public school counterparts.
Most of these statistics are from A Win-Win Solution by Greg Foster, Ph.D. You can download the report here, available with a wealth of other facts at www.edchoice.org.
