Let’s Defuse the “Draining” Myth Around School Choice

Opportunity

The movement to expand parental choice continues to gain momentum. Already this year, Iowa and Utah have followed Arizona’s lead and opened the door to education scholarship accounts for all students, regardless of income or background. Several other states, including Florida (a leader in school choice) and Texas, are also considering universal ESAs.

As these popular programs spread, critics often react with a list of common objections, most of which have been discredited in the research. One popular refrain is “ESAs drain money from public schools.” This “draining” myth, which takes the focus off students, falls flat on many counts. Consider the following:

Students regularly transfer out of school districts for a host of reasons.

o Families relocate to new neighborhoods, cities, or states.

o Students graduate

o Parents opt for a magnet or charter school, enroll across district lines, educate their children at home or pay private school tuition.

Each of these transfers has the same fiscal impact on a district.

School districts are capable of budgeting and planning in response. Every year, demographic data and historical data on student inflow and outflow help education leaders project local enrollments based on birth rates and family migration. They then budget and staff their schools accordingly. Looking ahead, states’ increasing experience with private school choice will generate new, additional information that will help districts adjust in exactly the same way.

Private school choice has saved states somewhere between $12 and $28 billion. That’s because students in the 40 choice programs studied are typically funded at lower rates than their public school peers.

Only a tiny sliver of total K-12 spending underwrites private school choice. The funding that families use nationwide—in the form of vouchers, scholarships and ESAs—still falls well below 1% of the growing sum of money available to public school systems.

Taxpaying parents should receive a benefit to invest directly in their children’s education. States fund their education systems from various sources of tax revenue. Yet parents typically have very limited say in how those resources, which they are required to contribute to, should be used to meet their children’s needs.

Research shows competition boosts district student achievement. Private school choice has a track record of improving test scores for those students who choose to stay in public schools. This strongly suggests the threat of “losing” students to other opportunities helps districts to improve their game.


The two largest states now considering universal ESA proposals—Florida and Texas—have different experiences with education choice. Yet both of these states illustrate how the “draining” myth misses the mark:


◉ No state has a higher share of students in private education choice programs than Florida, at just 6.3%. Even after two decades of choice, that number pales next to its 16.4% growth in public school enrollment. Adjusted for inflation, the Sunshine State’s public schools increased per-pupil funding by 8% during roughly the same period.


◉ Texas’ public school population and funding have boomed even more, growing from 4 million to nearly 5.5 million students, while taking in 16% more dollars per pupil. Plenty of room exists both to meet the increasing family demand for the kind of flexible education spending options ESAs afford and to continue supporting districts.


Providing parents with broader choice does not have to come at the expense of robust public school options. Thriving ESA programs can readily coexist with conventional districts if we keep the focus, first and foremost, on meeting the needs of students.

Solution Areas:

Private Education Choice, Public Education Choice

Topics:

Education Scholarship Accounts

About the Author

Ben DeGrow is a Senior Policy Director of Education Choice for ExcelinEd. 

Solution Areas:

Private Education Choice, Public Education Choice