Grading School Choice
Thursday, February 14th, 2008 By Matthew Carr
The Friedman Foundation has graded 21 school choice programs across the country against to the gold standard ideal set forth by founder Milton Friedman. Programs were rated based on student eligibility restrictions (demographic, geographic, and program size), the purchasing power of the vouchers, and school restrictions (school eligibility, admissions restrictions, and testing requirements).
Two of Ohio’s three publicly financed school choice programs fared relatively well on the criteria – the Autism voucher program (6th) and EdChoice (8th). The Cleveland voucher program, however, did not fare well, ranking a low 17th.
The most important contribution of the Friedman report is that it serves as a strong reminder that not all school choice programs are created equally. Too often terms like choice and markets are used to describe markedly different types of programs. This has created confusion and overshadowed important distinctions and differences. Quite often, as this report clearly shows, states have created limited choice programs which, at best, generate quasi-market forces.
The media typically report on school choice programs as though they were all the same. In reality, there are numerous differences between school choice programs, in large part because opponents of reform have succeeded in saddling school choice with all kinds of restrictions that prevent them from offering full educational choice to all students. Everything from who may participate, to how much of their education funding they may take with them out of the government-run system, to what kinds of schools they may attend, is tangled in a thicket of legal and legislative proscriptions.
As Friedman notes, that extant school choice programs do not live up to the ideal of a true education market is not cause for doubting the market model in general. Rather, it should serve as a catalyst for continued efforts to create programs that serve more students with fewer restrictions.
Tags: Education, School Choice
