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##  School Choice as Education Reform: What Do We Know? ERIC Digest                 Number 165.                                                                  

School choice exists today in a variety of forms, from charter                  schools, magnet schools, and district and state open enrollment                 plans to publicly and privately financed voucher plans. Despite                 years of research and debate, the question of whether school choice             improves student outcomes persists. Choice proponents suggest that              injecting greater competition into the education system can                     revolutionize education, while opponents argue that choice would                help only a select few students and hurt the many who are left                  behind. These starkly different views belie a much murkier research             picture that suggests some forms of school choice may benefit some              students under certain conditions. Much of the rhetoric surrounding             the choice issue also ignores the crucial role that the specifics of            school choice policies likely play in determining their effects.                This digest explores the issues surrounding school choice and                   highlights some of the major research findings. 
HOW CHOICE MIGHT              IMPROVE K-12 EDUCATION 
There are two arguments about why greater              school choice would result in better educational outcomes: (1) It               could allow schools to better tailor their programs to attract                  students with particular interests or learning styles, thus                     providing a better match for students' unique educational needs;                and (2) it would break the public school educational monopoly and               force schools to compete for students in an educational marketplace             in which "good" schools would prosper and "bad" schools would                   improve or be forced to shut down. 
If the primary benefit of                  choice is the match between students and schools, greater choice                would be beneficial regardless of whether a school's resources are              directly connected to its student population. However, if the                   primary benefit of choice is the creation of incentives designed to             squeeze inefficiencies out of the system, then the connection                   between student shifts and educational resources may be essential so            that there are financial consequences associated with losing                    students; here competition from the private sector may be                       beneficial. 
Although the theory behind the potential benefits of              choice is relatively straightforward, the educational marketplace is            not directly parallel to the private sector. Students and parents               may choose schools for a variety of reasons, and the vast majority              of schools are not for profit. As a result, the ultimate impact of              choice depends on how parents and schools respond to more schooling             options and greater competition. FINDINGS FROM THE                            RESEARCHSchool choice, in its various forms, has been the focus             of numerous studies over the past two decades. Most studies find                greater parental satisfaction associated with choice. But studies               also clearly show that less educated parents with more modest means             are less likely to exercise choice, which raises concerns that                  choice systems could lead to less equity and greater racial, ethnic,            and socioeconomic stratification. 
No definitive conclusions have              emerged about the academic effects of school choice on students, in             part because much of the evidence on choice is derived from                     non-experimental research designs where the participants in the                 study have self-selected a school, and therefore may differ from                those not in the study. Even students in the study may differ from              one another in ways that are unobservable to the researcher. For                example, we cannot directly observe students' attitudes toward                  academics, though they clearly play a role in explaining their                  achievement. EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLSNumerous             studies have examined differences in the outcomes of students who               attend public and private schools, enabling speculation about the               effects of a voucher policy on the K-12 education system. Private               school students, in general, outperform their public school                     counterparts on standardized tests, and they are more likely to                 graduate from high school and attend college. Significantly,                    positive private school effects have tended to be found                         predominantly for minority students in urban settings. There is,                however, mixed evidence about whether this is an effect of the                  schools they attend or a result of student factors, such as family              background. 
Even if private schools do not outperform public                  schools in terms of test scores, they might still be considered more            efficient if their costs for educating students are sufficiently                lower. It is true that private school tuition, particularly for                 Catholic schools, is generally significantly less than the amount               spent on each pupil in the public sector. There are, however,                   significant difficulties in accurately determining the cost of                  educating private school students. The tuition charged does not                 reflect subsidies from religious organizations or the in-kind                   contributions of parents who are often expected to contribute to the            school's maintenance. The two sectors also serve very different                 student populations and provide different services. Thus, drawing               strong conclusions about the value of choice based on comparisons               between public and private schools is problematic. 
Voucher                    Experiments 
Educational experiments can mitigate some of the                  problems in other types of choice research. For example, voucher                experiments have recently been conducted in several large cities                whereby low-income students wishing to receive vouchers were                    randomly assigned to a treatment group that received modest                     vouchers (around $1,500 per year) or to a control group that did                not. Evaluations showed that attending a private school had a                   statistically significant large beneficial impact overall. However,             there were no statistically significant differences between public              and private students in the test score performance of non-African               Americans students, and gains were not found across all grades or               subjects. 
These evaluations did not include controls for the                  demographics or achievement of the other students in the public and             private schools, so it is possible that what is perceived to be a               private school effect is actually a student peer effect. The                    estimated impact on this group that desires to attend private                   schools is not necessarily the effect on the general student                    population, and those schools that elect to participate in the                  experiment may not reflect private schools in general. Small                    experiments also do not provide evidence on the supply-side effects             of a larger voucher program, but the quality and type of                        participating private schools would, in part, determine the overall             impacts of expanded choice. Finally, many of the students offered               vouchers chose not to use them. This could affect research findings             if the characteristics of these students differ substantially from              those who use their vouchers. 
Competition Between                             Schools 
Another method used to assess the impact of choice and                competition on K-12 education is a comparison of student outcomes in            localities with differing amounts of competition, either between                public schools and school districts, or from private schools. Little            definitive evidence has emerged about the impact of charter and                 magnet schools on other public schools from which they draw                     students,  but some evidence does show that intra- and                          inter-district choice plans affect student achievement. New York                City's District 4, for example, a high poverty district serving                 predominantly minority students, has demonstrated dramatic                      improvements in achievement at least in part resulting from a choice            plan. Also, research on Minnesota and Massachusetts, states allowing            inter-district choice, suggests that districts losing large numbers             of students are likely to implement innovative programs designed to             attract students back. 
More generally, a number of studies show               that public school districts that face greater competition from                 other districts in the same metropolitan area have better student               outcomes and are more efficient. Similarly, research examining the              performance of public schools with greater private school                       competition tends to show, to various degrees, greater competition              positively impacts public school students. As with other                        non-experimental research, these studies have to take account of a              variety of statistical problems. Failure to control adequately for              unobserved differences in community preferences, such as choice of              locality, may lead to biased estimates of the effect of competition             on public schools. 
Parental Selection of Schools 
Studies                    generally show a positive relationship between the choice of school             and measures of school quality, implying that parents are making                decisions that are likely to benefit their children academically.               However, many of the cues that parents may use to identify good                 schools are strongly correlated with characteristics of the students            attending those schools, such as their socioeconomic status,                    suggesting that greater choice could result in greater segregation              along racial/ethnic and socioeconomic dimensions. But it is also                true that the public school system is relatively segregated today               and has become more so as middle-class families have fled inner                 cities. CONCLUSIONSIt is clear that not much is clear when it             comes to the issue of choice in education, but we can draw a few                conclusions from examining the broad array of findings: 
* For most            students, any benefits of public-private choice tend to be                      small. 
* There is some evidence that private schools benefit                  minority students in urban areas. 
* Competition between public                schools and districts appears to have small beneficial effects on               the efficiency of the schools competing. 
* Parents are sensitive              to measured school quality, but they also tend to base schooling                decisions, at least in part, on non-academic attributes of a                    school. 
Thus, there is an argument for increasing competition                 through enhanced choice options, although we do not yet know the                consequences of more expansive choice policies. The existing                    evidence suggests that choice is unlikely to be either the panacea              that some advocates claim or the disaster that opponents contend.               Rather, its ultimate educational effects are likely to be influenced            by the specific components of choice plans: the requirements placed             on participating private schools, the size of the voucher, the                  eligible students, and the financing mechanism. SELECTED                      REFERENCESGoldhaber, D.D. (1999). School choice: An examination             of the empirical evidence on achievement, parental decision making,             and equity. Educational Researcher, 28(9), 16-25. (EJ 600                       548) 
Goldhaber, D., & Eide, E. (2000). Methodological thoughts on             measuring the impact of competition in the educational work place.              Unpublished working paper, The Urban Institute, Washington,                     DC. 
Greene, J.P. (1998). Civic values in public and private                   schools. In P.E. Peterson & B.C. Hassel (Eds.), Learning from school            choice. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. (ED 426                    473) 
Hoxby, C. M. (1998). Analyzing school choice reforms that use            America's traditional forms of parental choice. In P.E. Peterson &              B.C. Hassel (Eds.), Learning from school choice. Washington, DC:                Brookings Institution Press.  (ED 426 473) 
Levin, H.M. (1998).                Educational vouchers: Effectiveness, choice, and costs. Journal of              Policy Analysis and Management, 17(3), 373-392. 
McEwan,                       P.J. (2000, Summer). The potential impact of large-scale voucher                programs. Review of Educational Research, 70(2), 103-49. 
Sander,              W. (1999, Fall). Private schools and public school achievement.                 Journal of Human Resources, 34(4), 697-709. (EJ 596 621) 
Sander,              W., & Krautman, A.C. (1995), Catholic schools, dropout rates and                educational attainment. Economic Inquiry, 33(2),                                217-233. 
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This Digest was developed by the ERIC                        Clearinghouse on Urban Education, with funding from the Office of               Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education,             under contract no. ED-99-CO-0035. The opinions in this digest do not            necessarily reflect the position or policies of OERI or the                     Department of Education.                                                     **Title:** School Choice as Education Reform: What Do We Know? ERIC Digest                 Number 165.                                                                  **Document Type:** Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis Products (IAPs) (071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text (073); **Available From:** ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education, Institute for Urban and                  Minority Education, Box 40, Teachers College, Columbia University,              New York, NY 10027. Tel: 800-601-4868 (Toll Free); Web site:                    http://www.eric-web.tc.columbia.edu.                                         **Descriptors:** Change Strategies, Competition,  Educational Change, Educational                Improvement, Educational Vouchers, Elementary Secondary Education,              Minority Groups, Parent Participation, Private Schools, Public                  Schools,  School Choice, Urban Schools                                       **Identifiers:** ERIC Digests, Reform Efforts                                                 
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