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the past decade, an intense debate has raged over the issue of "school
choice." Proponents say that it is a beacon of hope for low-income
students trapped in under-performing public schools, whereas critics
argue that it will accelerate the deterioration of those same public
schools.
Today, the
Supreme Court is hearing arguments in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris,
and, for the first time, it will have the opportunity to rule on
the constitutionality of the school-choice program in Cleveland
that has allowed thousands of low-income children to attend the
schools of their choice.
In the policy
debate underlying school choice, many assertions are made about
what will, and what will not, befall our communities if choice programs
are allowed to continue. The most frequent claim is that school
choice "will destroy the public schools" by skimming off
needed funds and the very best students and leaving the rest behind.
If true, that would be a damning, and likely fatal, indictment.
Oddly enough,
few of those critics have marshaled any evidence or data in support
of their claim. But it is precisely through a dispassionate examination
of the data, and not through assertions in the heat of battle, that
public-policy judgments should be made. And there is a great body
of data to be examined.
This week,
two economists, both experts in competition matters, released a
detailed study that considers that very question. The paper, by
Dr. Jerry Ellig and Dr. Kenneth Kelly, is forthcoming in the spring
issue of the Texas Review of Law & Politics.
The study observes
that the question whether school choice will help or harm the public
schools is fundamentally a question about the economic effects of
competition, namely whether the introduction of competition to a
monopoly provider can be expected to increase or decrease quality
(of education). More precisely, the inquiry is, What happens to
quality for customers of an incumbent provider (the public schools)
when competition is introduced?
This question
is not a new one, or unique to education. Indeed, it is the sort
of question economists routinely address. Therefore, the authors
proceeded in two parts: First, they examined the effects on quality
in other industries, previously regulated and monopolized, when
competition had been introduced, and second, they examined the data
in education to see if it was consistent with other demonopolized
industries.
The three industries
that Drs. Ellig and Kelly examined were surface freight transportation,
telecommunications, and airlines, all of which were heavily regulated
industries that were deregulated to allow competition. And, for
all three, careful empirical studies have assessed the impact of
competition on quality for customers of the incumbents.
The results
were remarkably consistent. Unsurprisingly, competition is a good
thing. In all three industries, the bulk of the data show no significant
harms to incumbent quality as a result of competition. Indeed, much
of the evidence demonstrates that quality by the incumbent providers
improved significantly as a result of competition.
But, we need
not simply accept the analogy to other demonopolized industries.
School choice is not simply a hypothetical idea, to be debated with
postulate and counter-postulate. Rather, more and more communities
have implemented school-choice programs in an effort to expand the
promise of education and opportunity to every child. Therefore,
a growing body of data exits about school choice in the real world,
and the charges of the critics can be tested and evaluated.
The data concerning
education are exactly consistent with these observed effects of
competition in other industries. Drs. Ellig and Kelly examined every
major study concerning school-choice programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland,
and Florida, and private choice scholarship programs in San Antonio,
Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, and Dayton.
Again, the
results are remarkably consistent. First, almost all the data demonstrate
that school-choice programs have significant benefits for the children
who receive vouchers. Study after study has shown consistent test-score
improvements for these largely low-income and minority children
who are offered the option of school choice. In D.C. alone, one
Harvard study found improvements of 8 percentile points in reading
and 10 percentile points in math for black students who received
vouchers.
Second, there
is not a shred of evidence that school-choice programs harm public
schools. Even the most skeptical of the scholars to have looked
at the data conclude that, at worst, school choice has no effect
on the public schools. Given that the assertion of the critics is
that school choice will "destroy" the public schools,
the fact that no one can point to any data whatsoever demonstrating
harm of any sort to the public schools is quite revealing.
Indeed, the
majority of the data demonstrates that school choice improves
the public schools. That is, that the children who remain in public
schools receive a better education because the public schools are
forced to improve in the face of competition.
Most public
schools perform wonderfully educating our children. But millions
of low-income, largely minority children have no access to those
wonderful public schools. In assessing the wisdom of school-choice
programs designed to give those children hope and opportunity, we
should be driven by the facts and the evidence, and not simply by
well-intentioned assertions. We should ask what the data show.
And that, the
Court must do. For the past half-century, the Supreme Court has
been at the vanguard of ensuring that educational opportunity in
America is a reality for rich and poor, black and white, alike.
That history, and the real public-policy consequences of school
choice as shown by an impartial examination of the data, is no doubt
on the Court's mind, as scores of black parents march outside the
steps in support of school choice.
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