Writing for the IndyStar, Michael J. Hicks, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research, declares the Indiana experiment in school choice a failure.
Hicks believes in school choice and the power of competition, but he has questions about the outcomes.
Of course, school choice may have many other benefits for families and students. But when it comes to improving Indiana’s educational outcomes, the period of school choice has been a clear failure.
In 2008, when the Daniels administration expanded school choice, Indiana’s economy was already suffering from poor educational outcomes. The bellwether measure — adult educational attainment—was then a whopping 6.5 percentage points below the nation as a whole. By 2019, it had collapsed to 9.1 percentage points below. That loss stabilized after COVID-19 but is poised to worsen.
Unsurprisingly, this decline affected employment and wages across the state. One example is the quality of jobs. From 2000 to 2023, the average Hoosier worker saw their wages decline from 5.8% below the national average to 16.2% below. Indiana is a magnet for low-wage jobs.
With almost a quarter-century of school choice, Indiana’s economy is in a relatively worse place today, with a less-educated workforce and declining relative wages. The prognosis is for more of the same.
Poor educational outcomes are the fundamental cause of our economic woes. Recent cuts to education spending have magnified the problem.
Indiana now spends less money per student on K-12 and higher education than we did when the big changes to school choice came about (2008 to 2010). In fact, this year is probably the lowest per student spending by state and local governments in the past several decades. And yes, those data are adjusted for inflation, a quick and honest calculation that the governor and several lawmakers seem to struggle with.
Some of the blame must attend to those of us who supported school choice. We overestimated the benefits, so it is time to set the record straight. I still believe school choice is good for Indiana families. But insofar as it has been used to justify cuts in per student educational spending, it risks being Indiana’s single most damaging economic policy of the 21st century.
