Yes. Studies conducted since the late 1990s convincingly show that school choice is an effective intervention and public policy for boosting student achievement and graduation rates.

Nine studies using a method called random assignment, the gold standard in the social sciences, have found statistically significant gains in academic achievement from school vouchers, one study found improved graduation rates. No such study has ever found negative effects. One study’s findings were inconclusive.

Random-assignment methods allow researchers to isolate the effects of vouchers from other student characteris¬tics. Students who applied for vouchers were entered into random lotteries to determine who would receive the voucher and who would remain in public schools; this allowed researchers to track very similar "treatment" and "control" groups, just like in medical trials.

Highly respected random-assignment research has been conducted in five large cities: Milwaukee, Charlotte, Wash¬ington, D.C., New York City, and Dayton.

Sound research has consistently demonstrated school choice policies improve public school performance. More than twenty credible studies indicate school choice programs introduce more competition among all public and private schools, compelling them to go out of their way to attract and retain students. Not a single empirical study has ever found that outcomes at American public schools got worse when exposed to school choice programs, and numerous studies have found that they improve over time.

Two recent research projects give evidence supporting this positive conclusion.

• A 2010 study by David Figlio and Cassandra Hart of Northwestern University examined the competitive effects of the Florida Tax-Credit Scholarship Program on public schools. They learned that more access and variety of private schools increased the competitive pressure on public schools in the wake of the policy announcement. They state in their conclusion, “Our results suggest that policies that introduce competition to public schools spur improvements in public school students’ test scores. This work therefore helps inform a major policy de¬bate regarding whether harnessing market forces is an effective way to help not only the students who enter the private education market, but also the students who remain behind in the public sector.”
• A 2009 study by Jay Greene and Ryan Marsh of the University of Arkansas considered the systemic effects of expanding school choice in Milwaukee. Greene and Marsh found that public school students in Milwaukee fare better academically when they have more free private options through the voucher program. They say in the conclusion of their paper, “It appears that Milwaukee public schools are more attentive to the academic needs of students when those students have more opportunities to leave those schools. This finding is robust across several different specifications of the model.”

Yes. numerous polls and surveys find that most Americans support policies for school vouchers and tax-credit scholarships.

Over three years, from 2007 to 2009, the Foundation for Educational Choice conducted statistically representative surveys of likely voters in fourteen states and registered voters in the District of Columbia. In nearly all of the surveys, majorities favored school voucher and tax-credit scholarship policies.

• Voters supported vouchers in the interviews; favorability typically hovered in the 50s for any given state survey. Oregon and Idaho recorded the highest support for vouchers, 63 percent and 60 percent respectively. Maryland and Tennessee showed the lowest levels of favorability, 42 percent and 44 percent respectively.
• Tax-credit scholarships also garnered substantial voter support. Favorability also averaged in the mid-50s. Virginia and Montana recorded the highest support for tax-credit scholarships, 65 percent and 64 percent respectively. Kentucky and Oregon voiced the lowest levels of favorability, 49 percent and 51 percent respectively.

Many national polls have documented support for school vouchers, or the functional equivalent termed “scholarships”:

• 61 percent supported, and 27 percent opposed, school vouchers allowing parents to move their children from under-performing schools to more successful schools. (Sacred Heart University 2005)
• 62 percent agreed, two years in a row, that “parents should have the option of sending their children to non-public schools, including those with a religious affiliation, using vouchers or credits provided by the federal government that would pay for some or all of the costs.” (First Amendment Center 2003 & 2004)
• 63 percent supported “allowing poor parents to be given the tax dollars allotted for their child’s education and permitting them to use those dollars in the form of a scholarship to attend a private, public or parochial school of their choosing.” (Zogby 2002)
• 53 percent agreed, and 42 percent disagreed, that “the federal government should set aside public funds for students enrolled in public schools that are considered to be failing; the money will then be used to pay for the students to attend their choice of public, private, or parochial school.” (Zogby 2002)
• 51 percent favored, and 40 percent opposed, the idea of school vouchers to help send children to private or parochial schools. (Associated Press 2002)
• 69 percent supported vouchers even if public schools got less money: “What if that meant the public schools in your community would receive less money, then would you agree or disagree that parents should get tax-funded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their children to attend private or religious schools instead of public schools?” (CBS/New York Times 2001)
• 54 percent said yes, and 38 percent said no, when asked: “Would vouchers improve the public school system?” (CNN/USA Today/Gallup 2001)

No. Real world experience and evidence show that states and cities with school choice programs have not seen their public school budgets go down.

When students leave public schools using voucher programs, they free up more money for the students who remain. Taking a student out of public school removes the cost of educating that student. Most of these savings re¬main in local school budgets where they benefit other students; the rest of the savings go into state budgets. States and cities with school choice programs have all increased their per-student instructional spending in the years since the programs began.

Two examples may help for consideration. By 1992, Milwaukee’s school choice program had been in place for two years, and according to the U.S. Census, the city’s public schools spent $9,038 per student; by 2007 that figure had swelled to $11,725 – a 30 percent increase in real dollars. Cleveland’s school choice program launched in 1997, when the city was spending $9,293 per student. Cleveland was spending $11,383 per student in 2007 – a 22 per¬cent increase in real dollars over eleven school years.

The cost of a voucher or scholarship for a participant in a school choice program is less than what would have been spent on that student if he or she had remained in public schools. While the average public school spends about $10,000 per student, the average private school charges about $6,000 in tuition. That difference is the fundamental reason school choice policies will save money.

Policy design is critical. School choice is constitutional at the federal level and in most states as long as policies and programs are designed properly.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court answered this constitutional question thoroughly at the federal level. In the landmark Zellman v. Simmons-Harris case, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Cleveland’s school voucher program by a 5-4 vote. The justices made it very clear that when an individual uses public funds to make a private choice—in this case when a parent uses a voucher to send his or her child to a private school (including religious schools)—it does not violate the First Amendment.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained in the majority opinion that voucher programs such as Cleveland’s are “neutral in respect to religion (because they) provide assistance directly to a broad class of citizens, who, in turn, direct government aid to religious schools wholly as a result of their own genuine and independent private choice.” Hence, if a school choice program allows “true private choice” and it is “religiously neutral”, then it is constitutional.

Research shows that private schools and school choice programs promote and advance good citizenship and democratic values. Students at private schools tend to be more tolerant of the rights of others, more likely to vote, and more likely to be volunteers than students at public schools.

Private schools benefit from being legally permitted to have a point of view, which allows private schools to handle controversial topics and issues in a straightforward manner. This pedagogical flexibility may help con¬vey a tangible sense of what tolerance and civic duty require in practice.

Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas conducted a systematic review of all empirical studies comparing civic values in public and private schools. Among 23 findings based on random assignment (using lotteries to admit applicants to voucher programs) or other highly rigorous methods, Wolf reports that 12 found better civic values in private schools, while 10 found no visible difference, and only one found better civic values in public schools. Among 36 other, more basic findings, Wolf reports that 21 found private schools had better civic values, while 13 were neutral and two found better values in public schools.

Private schools are accountable to both parents (they have power and leverage by way of choosing a school) and various government entities (through existing codes, rules, and regulations).

Private schools are primarily accountable to parents and caregivers, who can pull their children out of a school that fails to serve them. If a public school fails to perform, parents are essentially powerless. They have very little practical means to hold it accountable; they are stuck.

Private schools are not just accountable to families; they are already accountable to the public and government au¬thorities. Private schools in every state comply with a vast array of health and safety regulations, antidiscrimination and civil rights laws, and even rules covering the minimum number of school days. In addition, most private schools are already required to undertake financial audits and evaluate student performance using standardized tests.

Private schools that participate in school choice programs are required to be safe, non-discriminatory and fiscally sound and to file regular reports and disclosures.

More regulations do not always mean more accountability. What gives the concept of accountability real teeth is a par¬ent’s ability to choose a school freely. With that power and leverage, a parent can take a child out of a school that isn’t doing the job and find another school that will. Without that parental leverage, non-negotiable public school assign¬ments greatly increase the chances that students’ needs will be taken for granted and parent concerns ignored.

Furthermore, private schools are not highly selective, and offer better educational opportunities for students who are difficult to teach, including students with disabilities. They are often better equipped to handle students with disabilities or other challenging students than public schools.

Yes. The research shows that students in school choice programs attend more integrated schools than their public school counterparts. All the available empirical research finds that vouchers are moving students into private schools that are substantially less segregated than public schools.

Private schools in voucher programs are less racially segregated than their public school counterparts. Vouch¬ers break down neighborhood barriers and draw students together, providing a more integrated school expe¬rience. The empirical research shows that vouchers put students into less segregated schools.

On average, private school classrooms are more integrated than nearby public school classrooms. Our nation’s public schools and districts are heavily segregated. Public schools are so segregated primarily because of resi¬dential segregation. Attendance at public schools is largely determined by where people live, which guaran¬tees that segregation in housing patterns will always be reproduced in public schools. Desegregation efforts have largely failed because they are geographically limited; white families who move to the suburbs cannot legally be forced to bus their children across municipal lines. Private schools, by contrast, can draw students with no limitation to geography. In fact, private schools typically draw from a much larger geographic area than public schools. That means private schools can mitigate the effects of residential segregation in a way public schools cannot match.

Yes. Providing school choice to special-education students allows families unhappy with their assigned public school to find a program that meets their child’s individual needs.

As of 2010, after ten years of operation, Florida’s McKay program has more than 20,000 participating students, which is the largest program of its kind in the country.

Private schools are not highly selective, and offer better educational opportunities for students who are difficult to teach, including students with disabilities. They are often better equipped to handle students with disabilities or other challenging students than public schools.

No. Based on the history of existing school choice programs, vigilance and responsible stewardship of programs are working.

For nearly twenty years, attempts to transform private schools into over-regulated public schools through school choice programs have failed. Opponents of vouchers and scholarships have tried to increase the regulations on private schools participating in school choice programs, and in nearly all of these cases parents and supporters defeated them. Under a few special circumstances, some school choice programs have adopted reasonable accountability rules in cooperation with school choice advocates.

Private schools already are publicly accountable. They are accountable to parents, who can pull their children out of a school that fails to serve them—a freedom not available to parents stuck in a public school monopoly system. Private schools are also accountable to the public, through health and safety regulations, antidiscrimination laws and other state rules, as well as widespread voluntary fiscal audits, accreditation and testing.