Does Nevada’s new school choice program hurt low- and middle-income students?
Nevada governor Brian Sandoval last month signed into law the first state-wide universal school choice program in the United States. The program will pay low-income families and children with disabilities $5,700 per child annually to be spent on private school tuition, tutoring, online courses, among other educational expenses—and all other families $5,200 per child annually.
Nevada’s law is the ultimate expression of the school choice movement, first introduced by Milton Friedman in his famous 1955 essay, “The Role of Government in Education.” Friedman believed that giving families government-funded vouchers to use at a school of their choice would promote competition among schools trying to attract students, thereby improving quality and lowering costs. This idea has helped drive the charter-school movement, which now serves about 2.3 million students across the country.
Nevada’s new program is arguably the fullest manifestation of Friedman’s vision to date. Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have enacted legislation allowing some children to use public funds to pay for private schools. While most of these programs are limited to students with disabilities or low-income families, a few states, such as Indiana, have expanded voucher programs to the middle class. But Nevada’s law is historic because all the state’s 450,000 Kindergarten-through-12th grade public school children are eligible regardless of income.
In theory, school choice seems like an attractive option. Policymakers and the American public are inundated by constant reports of our failing education system, especially in comparison to other wealthy countries. School-choice programs, it would appear, could give some of low-income children an education that is usually only available to wealthier kids.
In reality, however, many of these programs do not deliver what they promise. There seems to be no clear advantage in academic achievement among students who take part in these school-choice programs. One study by Matthew Chingos of The Brookings Institution and Paul E. Peterson of Harvard University finds an increase in college enrollment for African American students, but it does not find this to be true for other ethnic groups. And because this study looks at a small program—the analysis is of a privately funded scholarship program, and only included 1,000 families—it is not clear whether these results are applicable to a larger-scale setting.
What’s more, school-choice programs implemented on a larger scale may further segment the country along income and racial lines. A working paper by Duke University economists Helen Ladd, Charles Clotfelter, and John Holbein, finds that the rapid increase of charter schools in North Carolina increased racial segregation. Similarly, a 2011 literature review published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concluded that among the developed and leading developing member nations of the OECD, school choice provides “enhanced opportunities for some advantaged parents and students who have a strong achievement orientation, but also harm others, often more disadvantaged and low [income] families.”
The educational achievement gap in the United States today is truly alarming. My colleague, Robert Lynch, finds that the United States could increase economic growth substantially if we improved achievement among students at the bottom of the income ladder. Sadly, disparity in educational outcomes is likely to increase in Nevada, where the median price of tuition at private schools in the state is $8,000. The state’s new school voucher program will reduce the marginal cost of private school for many families, yet other low- and middle-income families that cannot afford the remaining tuition costs or cannot find a private school where the voucher covers the full cost of tuition will have little choice but to leave their kids in an even further underfunded public school.
To make it worse, private school tuition may rise in Nevada. As American Enterprise Institute’s Nat Malkcus points out, families’ options could be further limited if private schools raise their tuition in response to increased demand, leaving public schools as a “dumping ground” for those low- and middle income families least able to cope with rising educational costs.
Families across America want the choice to decide what is best for their kids. But in Nevada, school choice could leave many families with no choice at all.