Myths vs. Facts

There are many misconceptions about parental school choice; however, separate the myths from the facts and several truths are realized.

To date, there are 30 parental school choice programs in 16 states, including the District of Columbia.
Low-income families in Milwaukee have had a parental school choice program for over 15 years, and Cleveland families have had school choice for over 10 years.
Maine and Vermont have had school choice programs for more than 100 years.
Research on school choice programs consistently shows that participating students perform better, parents are more involved with their children’s education, and public schools improve in response.

According to the North Carolina Department of Non-Public Education, nearly 80,000 students currently are home schooled (2011), as opposed to only 34,000 students at the turn of the century.
Over 96,000 students attend private schools in North Carolina.
These numbers show an unquestionably high demand among our citizens for more educational choice.

When parents are the ultimate decision makers, instead of the system, in terms of where and how they wish to educate their children, traditional public schools perform better.
Competition begets better performance in any setting, and this concept also applies in education.
Three studies of Florida’s A+ Opportunity Scholarship Program, including studies conducted at Harvard and Cornell, found that public schools exposed to parental school choice made greater academic gains than similar Florida public schools not exposed to choice.

In a typical school choice program, the amount of money spent on each participant is less than what would have been spent on that student in public schools. That means that states save money, which can be put back into public schools. Fiscal studies in Arizona, Washington, D.C., Minnesota, and Maryland have confirmed that parental school choice programs save millions of dollars every year.
Although schools have a small amount of fixed costs that remain after students leave, the financial savings generated for public schools by school choice programs far outweigh the relatively small effects of fixed costs, results confirmed by fiscal studies in South Carolina, New Mexico, Utah, and New Hampshire.
In Milwaukee, between the creation of the city’s school choice program in 1990 and 2004, real spending per pupil increased by $5,644 per student and state support for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) increased from $402 million to $668 million. An MPS report estimated that the district would have to spend $70 million more a year if the parental school choice program ended.

Of the families in Milwaukee’s voucher program, 54% receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children; the average income is $11,600; 76% are in single-parent households; and 96% are minority.
The evaluator of the Cleveland voucher program, Kim Metcalf, reported that “The scholarship program effectively served the population of families and children for which it was intended… low-income students.”
According to Harvard researcher Paul Peterson, the majority of students receiving vouchers score well below the national average prior to entering a parental school choice program, typically scoring in the bottom third of all students.
Many parental school choice programs require that participating schools accept scholarship students randomly and are, in fact, means-tested.

Nationally recognized research from the Cleveland parental school choice program has shown that parents who exercise school choice are much happier with their child’s school and are much more involved with their child’s education.
Two studies of Milwaukee’s parental school choice program have found that students randomly selected to enter school choice programs outperformed similar students who applied for the program but lost a random lottery and had to return to public schools.
Participants in Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities enjoy smaller class sizes and experience significantly fewer behavioral problems and instances of bullying.
In Milwaukee, an empirical study found that private schools participating in the parental school choice program had dramatically higher graduation rates than the Milwaukee public schools. Sixty-four percent graduated from private schools, compared to a 36% graduation rate in public schools.

National data collected by the U.S. Department of Education finds that “private school students are more likely to be in racially mixed classes than public school students.”
An empirical study of Milwaukee’s school choice program by Howard Fuller of Marquette University found that “adding religious schools led to substantially more integration in parental school choice systems than in Milwaukee public schools… half of (public school) students attended racially isolated schools… compared to just 31.1 percent of students at religious choice schools. The result was more integration, achieved voluntarily.”
In Cleveland, an empirical study found that nearly 20% of voucher students attended schools that were racially representative of the city as a whole, whereas only 5% of Cleveland public school students attended such schools.
In Washington, D.C., an empirical study found that 85% of public school students attend racially homogenous schools, compared to 47% of students in private schools that participated in the city’s parental school choice program.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Cleveland Scholarship Program, making it clear that school choice programs are “neutral in respect to religion (because they) provide assistance to a broad class of citizens who, in turn, direct government aid to religious schools wholly as a result of their genuine and independent private choice.”
An analysis by the Institute of Justice, a national non-profit law firm, finds that unlike some other states, North Carolina’s constitution poses no barrier to a well-crafted school choice program.
The constitutionality of parental school choice largely depends on how well the legislation is designed. A well designed program should: allow parents to direct the funds to the school of their choice; not provide a financial incentive to choose a religious school over a non-religious school or public school; and should excessive government entanglement with religious schools by not imposing unnecessary regulations on schools practices.