Dramatic Evidence Parents Happy with School Choice
Thursday, August 6th, 2009 By Beth Lear
More evidence was revealed today that school choices is working. The Friedman Foundation found parents participating in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program had “dramatically higher levels of satisfaction with academic progress, individual attention, teacher quality, school responsiveness, and student behavior when compared to the public schools their children previously attended…”
Among the findings of the report:
- 80 percent of the parents are “very satisfied” with the academic progress their children are making in their current private schools, compared to 4 percent in their previous public schools.
- 80 percent are “very satisfied” with the individual attention their children now receive, compared to 4 percent in public schools.
- 76 percent are “very satisfied” with the teacher quality in their current schools, compared to 7 percent in public schools.
- 76 percent are “very satisfied” with their schools’ responsiveness to their needs, compared to 4 percent in public schools.
- 62 percent are “very satisfied” with the student behavior in their current schools, compared to 3 percent in public schools.
Why do political leaders, union bosses and bureaucrats in Ohio continue to believe they know better than parents what is best for Ohio children? Stop shoving the one-size-doesn’t-fit-all public system down the throats of Ohio families and give Ohio kids the tools they need to make Ohio successful again – give our children school choice!
August 6th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Let’s not get too excited!
1. The survey was condcuted and published by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Let’s use the full name. Clearly, they have a dog in this fight.
2. The survey asked the opinion of parents who used to have their kids in public school, and now have them in a private school due to a government program.
3. This means that by definition, these parents were likely to have been unsatisfied with the public school, or they would not have left.
4. This means by definition, these parents were likely to have been satisfied satisfied with the private school, or they would not have stayed.
5. So let’s not be surprised that a group of people who were unsatisfied enough with their public school to leave and satisfied enough with their private school to stay ended up preferring the private school. What’s actually surprising is that any of them preferred the public school.
Does this mean that school choice is bad? No. All I’m saying is, let’s not get too excited.