Abby Burrola is an Associate Director of Education Policy at ExcelinEd.
The last few years have seen landmark expansions of private school choice options. Florida, Arizona and Indiana have led the way for other states—including Iowa, Utah and Arkansas—to expand their Education Scholarship Account (ESA) programs to universal eligibility for all students.
More states are considering adopting choice policies this year, building on sweeping growth during the pandemic years as parents got a closer look inside their kids’ classrooms and decided to seek alternatives to their assigned public schools.
Critics often proclaim that choice programs are both unsuccessful and untested, but that’s highly inaccurate. In fact, private school choice is a well-researched area of K-12 education policy, with many high-quality studies conducted since the first choice program got underway in the 1990s.
In 2001, Florida became one of the first states to introduce private school choice options. Initially designed to help low-income students afford private school tuition, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program provided 15,500 scholarships to students in its first year.
Since then, the state has scaled up its private school choice programs, and today Florida is a leader in providing students with educational options ranging from charter schools and private schools to microschooling, homeschooling and online learning. Among the state’s many options is a universal Education Savings Account program, where all students can now access a scholarship for private school tuition and other educational services. In the 2023-24 school year, nearly 360,000 students opted for an ESA.
Although hundreds of thousands of students are now using Florida’s private school choice programs, data show that most Florida students remain enrolled in district schools, refuting the argument that giving parents options to leave the traditional public system will harm the system itself. But are there any impacts on the students who remain in the public schools?
Recent research in Florida has found that public school students actually benefit from private school competition, even though they may never set foot in a private school.
Here’s what well-established school choice researcher David Figlio and his team found. They recently took a comprehensive look at how the expansion of Florida’s private school choice program affected public school students’ academic and behavioral outcomes over a 15-year timeframe.
To start, the researchers assessed how much private school competition the public schools faced before a choice program launched. They found that from 2003 to 2018, students in public schools facing more competitive pressure from private schools saw larger gains in math and reading scores and lower absenteeism and suspension rates. The positive impacts increased as the choice program matured.
Importantly, lower-income students in public schools benefited the most, especially in their reading scores.
These positive results show that competition from private school choice can benefit all students, regardless of what choice an individual family makes. Further, district leaders looking to improve student outcomes may find incentives and support to achieve their goals when there is competitive pressure.
In addition to competitive pressure, many other changes occurred within Florida’s school system over the 15-year study period. To test their findings, the researchers analyzed whether factors such as changes in student composition, school resources and/or teacher demographics had a significant impact. They concluded it was indeed private school competition that drove the positive results in both academic and behavioral outcomes.
These latest findings echo and expand on a compelling body of research by Dr. Figlio that consistently shows competition has improved Florida public schools. Notably, this is not the first set of results showing a positive correlation between private school choice and public school outcomes. The competitive effects of private school choice on public school students is one of several areas researchers have examined as they continue to study the short- and long-term effects of these programs.
Many of the largest school districts in the country face little competitive pressure for attracting students, whether the pressure is from charter schools, private schools or other options. Yet the availability of alternatives for a district’s students can give leaders who are looking for ways to spur improvements an extra edge to achieve their goals.
Private school choice policies offer excellent options to help students access a more suitable or effective education. This is particularly relevant for state policymakers considering enhancing their private school choice offerings or introducing private school choice in their state. Florida, which already expanded its small-scale program into a universal one, has seen dramatic academic improvements along the way. Dr. Figlio’s compelling findings provide other forward-thinking states with further confirmation of private choice’s many benefits.
Without question, ready access to educational options provides immediate relief for students and their families, allowing them to switch into a learning environment where they feel safe, included and academically challenged. As we have seen, school options also create competition in education, inspiring school officials to focus on ways to better serve their students and families rather than taking residential assignments for granted.
Florida’s efforts to provide educational options are paying off for all its students. Other states can follow the Sunshine State’s lead, knowing that evidence-based research confirms the benefits of private school choice, both for those exercising their option and those who remain in the traditional system.
More than a decade of research on Florida’s Tax-Credit Scholarship program and McKay ESA shows:
