Charles Russo (University of Dayton) and Suzanne Eckes (University of Wisconsin-Madison) wrote for The Conversation about the Trump administration’s heavy push for school choice, but they question the value of that policy for students.
The push to give parents more choice over where to send their children is based on the assumption that doing so will provide them with a better education.
In the order, Trump specifically cites disappointing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showing that 70% of eighth graders are below proficient in reading, while 72% are below proficient in mathematics.
Voucher advocates point to research that school choice boosts test scores and improves educational attainment.
But other data don’t always back up the notion that school choice policies meaningfully improve student outcomes. A 2023 review of the past decade of research on the topic by the Brookings Institution found that the introduction of a voucherlike program actually led to lower academic achievement – similar to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 2017 review by a Stanford economist Martin Carnoy published by the Economic Policy Institute similarly found little evidence vouchers improve school outcomes. While there were some modest gains in graduation rates, they were outweighed by the risks to funding public school systems.
Indeed, vouchers have been shown to reduce funding to public schools, especially in rural areas, and hurt public education in other ways, such as by making it harder for schools to afford qualified teachers.
Critics of voucher programs also fear that nonpublic schools may discriminate against some students, such as those who are members of the LGBTQ+ community. There are some reports of this already happening in Wisconsin. Unlike legislation governing traditional public schools, state laws regulating voucher programs often do not include comprehensive anti-discrimination provisions.
Criticisms of voucher programs aside, many parents who support them do so based on the hope that their children will have more affordable, high-quality educational options. This was especially true in Zelman, in which the Supreme Court upheld the rights of parents to remove their kids from Cleveland’s struggling public schools.
There is little doubt in our minds that in some cases school choice affords some parents in low-performing districts additional options for their children’s education.
But in general, the evidence shows that is the exception to vouchers, not the rule. Evidence also suggests most children – whether they’re using vouchers to attend nonpublic schools or remain in the public school system – may not always benefit from school choice programs. And when it takes money out of underfunded public school systems, school choice can make things worse for a lot more children than it benefits.
