Progressive school choice (Progressive vouchers)

Mark Loewe, Ph. D. Physics, Austin, Texas, 25 December 2000

Children and teachers are harmed by the limitation that only tuition-free government schools are allowed to receive public education funds.  This unnecessary limitation stifles free-market innovation and accountability, imposes a heavy and regressive deterrent against private funding of schools that charge tuition,[1][2] results in the loss of tens-of-billions of private dollars per year from our K-12 education system, and wastes tens-of-billions of public dollars per year.  Progressive school choice can resolve these problems with maximum benefits for poor children.

Progressive school choice would provide voucher schools with public funds equal to, say, 75 percent of the public funds that government schools receive per weighted child.[3]  It would also allow a voucher school to charge tuition as long as the voucher school's public funds are further reduced by, say, 25 percent of any private funds the voucher school receives.[4]  For example, if government schools receive 6,000 public dollars (per weighted child per year), then voucher schools that receive no private dollars would receive 4,500 public dollars, voucher schools that receive 400 private dollars would receive 4,400 public dollars, ..., voucher schools that receive 10,000 private dollars would receive 2,000 public dollars, and so on.  The government would save $1,500, $1,600, ..., $4,000, respectively.

Compared to this example of progressive school choice, a monopoly of tuition-free government schools takes 2,000 public dollars away from voucher schools that receive 10,000 private dollars and takes more than 4,400 public dollars away from voucher schools that receive less than 400 private dollars.  By depriving voucher schools of public funds, such a monopoly reduces the quality of education available in voucher schools, heavily deters enrollment in and private contributions to voucher schools,[1][2] and deprives children in government schools of substantial savings.  Such a monopoly harms the choices of education available to rich children and devastates the choices of education available to poor children!

Progressive school choice would reduce the private funds needed for tuition by thousands of dollars per child, with the greatest reductions at the lowest tuitions.  Rich parents, poor parents, businesses, other private sources, and voucher schools (through partial tuition waivers) would be better able to afford the remaining tuition, if any.[5]  This would empower parents, especially poor parents and parents of children with special needs,[3] to choose and spend money on safer schools that better serve the individual needs, abilities, and interests of their children.  Increased competition would empower businesses to choose and donate to schools with innovative programs that successfully respond to workforce needs.  It is conceivable that our education system would benefit from 60 billion additional private dollars per year, an average of $1,000 per child over our roughly 60 million school children.

The government would save 25 percent on each child who transfers from a government school to a voucher school and save 25 percent on private funds attracted by voucher schools.  Reduced enrollments in government schools would reduce pressures to expand or build new government schools.  If facilities become underused, then older facilities could be sold or leased to voucher schools in order to generate revenue.  The net savings would amount to tens-of-billions of dollars per year even after accounting for public funds spent to benefit children who  transfer to voucher schools from private schools that are ineligible to receive public funds.[6]  These savings could be used to increase funds for children who attend government schools, to increase funds for children who attend voucher schools, and to stem tax increases on businesses and the general public.

Classroom teachers would enjoy higher salaries and better working conditions.  Salaries would rise due to the tens-of-billions of dollars of additional private funding and due to shifts in spending away from top-heavy administration and wasteful programs.  Working conditions would improve because teachers could more easily choose to work at, or even start up, schools that more productively employ their talents, promote learning, and, when necessary, remediate disruptive behavior.

Progressive school choice does not raise or lower taxes; it is easy to implement together with whatever portfolio of federal, state, and local taxes is used to generate public education funds and together with whatever ways the tax revenues are split among states and school districts.  Individual states and districts can adopt different voucher school funding percentages, learn from the market responses, and adjust their percentages to maximize educational opportunities.

Progressive school choice is easy to implement regardless of the roles parents, teachers, school boards, legislatures, Congress, and the courts play in determining curricula.  It would also reduce costly lawsuits involving parents, teachers, and others who are unhappy with one-size-fits-all policies imposed on, and implemented by, government school monopolies.

Implementing progressive school choice is the best step we can take to improve our education system.  Parents, teachers, school boards, business leaders, and legislators can all play important roles in supporting progressive school choice.