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Parental choice preferable to increased government spending
September 30, 2013
Constitutional lawyer Clint Bolick once described our public education system as a “hidebound, bureaucratic, expensive, top-down, one-size-fits-all, command-and-control, inefficient, reform-resistant, administratively bloated, special-interest-manipulated, obsolete, impersonal bricks-and-mortar system that represents the most disastrous failure of central planning west of Communist China and south of the United States Postal Service.”
Curiously, some Oklahomans think it’s a good idea to give this system moremoney. But as I argued last week in The Edmond Sun, a better idea is to give parents vouchers, tax credits, and Arizona-style education savings accounts. After all, private-school choice improves student performance in public schools. Education scholar Greg Forster reports that “23 empirical studies have examined school choice’s impact on academic outcomes in public schools. Of these, 22 find that choice improves public schools and one finds no visible impact.”
That’s a much better track record than what we see from increased government spending. I encourage you to read the entire column here.
Click on chart to enlarge