Consumers having purchased computers and videos created the demand for those shops. We would expect the same with private schools. If parents had vouchers or tax credits, one can rest assured that entrepreneurs, in the pursuit of profits, would emerge to meet the demand for private schools. Parents, particularly those who are low-income, are incapable of making wise choices. This is a demeaning attitude toward the poor and it also reflects ignorance of how markets operate.
People have little direct information about the quality of most goods and services they use.
They depend on indirect information such as word of mouth, consumer reports, advertisements, and so forth. Markets generate information about quality, and information would be generated about K through 12 schools just as markets already provide information about colleges and universities. Even if parents made mistakes, it is inconceivable that parents, particularly black parents, could choose schools worse than the schools already serving them. On occasion I have put the matter more starkly saying that if the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan wanted to sabotage black academic excellence, he could not devise a more effective way of doing so than the schools serving most black children. Education vouchers and tuition tax credits face another source of criticism.