Is school choice a ‘bad idea’?

The perennial debate over school choice policies is ramping up in North Dakota, as the Legislature’s interim Education Committee and a separate task force consider what educational choice programs could look like in the state.

For ACLU North Dakota Advocacy Manager Cody Schuler, considering such a model “is a bad idea,” according to his op-ed in the North Dakota Monitor.

Schuler states that “opportunity in education” and “effective education options for every child” is “what we want for every North Dakota student.”

Agreed!

But this is not a reality for every North Dakota student. Majorities of North Dakota public school students aren’t meeting grade-level proficiency in reading or math.

Allowing families the opportunity to choose something different, to choose what learning environment works best for their child’s needs, is widely supported by parents across political and geographic spectrums. And that’s a key point missing from Schuler’s argument.

Parents are the ones voluntarily choosing to participate in school choice programs. Parents, not government bureaucrats and intellectuals, who know their children best and are the first educators of their children, choose school choice for a variety of reasons. If it’s such a bad idea, why are so many parents choosing it? Why are there waiting lists to participate in a school choice program?

The short answer is because the overall concept of school choice works. We know this from years of data on school choice policies. The most rigorous studies — empirical studies that use random assignment, the gold-standard of social science — find overwhelmingly positive effects of private school choice programs.

An analysis of 188 studies on the impact of private school choice programs found 84 percent had positive effects across a variety of outcomes. Eleven out of 17 studies analyzed (65 percent) found positive effects of school choice programs on program participant test scores. Twenty-six out of 29 studies (90 percent) found positive effects of school choice programs on public school students’ test scores. Sixty-nine out of 75 studies (87 percent) found positive fiscal effects on taxpayers and school districts.

Overall Effects Counts for Studies of Private School Choice Programs

When families participate in a school choice program, the money that would otherwise be used to educate that child at his or her neighborhood public school instead follows the child to the educational learning environment of choice. Allowing public dollars to follow a person to a private institution is not a new concept.

Consider, for example, how this plays out in higher education. Through Pell Grants, qualifying students across the country are allowed to use federal taxpayer funds to help pay for tuition at private institutions. Through the GI Bill, military undergraduate and graduate students can use the bill’s benefits to help pay for a private college or university, graduate school, or training programs. These students are using taxpayer funds to attend private schools in higher ed. These two programs operate very similar to K-12 school choice programs.

Staying in education, pre-K programs are another example of public dollars being used at private institutions. Many states allow the programs that operate outside the public school system (such as, private and faith-based childcare centers) to receive government funding to operate. 

Even outside the education space, public dollars can be used at private institutions: consider food stamps programs, Medicaid, Section 8 Housing. Public aid for private institutions already happens. If it’s a bad idea, then it needs to be critiqued and re-evaluated in all areas where it occurs.

At the end of the day, though, even with all the data, even with the U.S. Supreme Court confirming the constitutionality of school choice programs, there is not going to be a single outcome indicator that everyone can agree on that demonstrates success of school choice programs because parents value different things in education.

But that’s the beauty of a diverse and decentralized system — no one method is inherently superior, and families are given the freedom to access an education environment that aligns with their values and principles without forcing their personal preferences on those who want something different.

Is school choice a “bad idea”? Depends on who you ask. For the majority of parents who support school choice programs, it is not. For those nervous about it upsetting the top-down control of education, perhaps it is.