Notice that Florida’s program worked even though the program was very weak. It offered vouchers only to students in the worst schools and only after those schools received F grades in multiple years. The vouchers were relatively small and could not be topped up. In addition, the program lasted only a few years before it was declared unconstitutional by Florida’s supreme court.
A true voucher program would be national, would not discriminate among students, would offer funding equal to that spent on students in public schools and would be permanent. Competition in such a system would be more intense and even more productive than in Florida’s program.
[more] A sure bet - if Obama gets into the U.S. White House, school choice will be blockaded by the teachers unions for another four to eight years [at minimum]. That will be extremely sad. Everyone in the world loses from substandard U.S. education, not just Americans [less innovation –> less growth in personal income, less progress against poverty].
0 Responses to “School choice: incentives matter”