A growing academic body of research continues to confirm Coleman's findings. Likewise, in the April 1995 issue of Economic Inquiry , Sander and Anthony C. Krautmann, an Associate Professor at DePaul's Department of Economics, showed that Catholic schools had a significant negative effect on the odds that children would drop out of school. Derek Neal, an Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago, reported in a November 1995 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research that the probability that inner-city students would graduate from high school increased from 62 percent to at least 88 percent when those students were placed in a Catholic secondary school. The latest study by David Figlio, a University of Oregon economist, finds similar results, particularly among low-income minorities who live in large central cities. More dollars go into the classrooms.
Parental choice is economically efficient.
Under the D.C. Student Opportunity Act of 1997, federal dollars would go directly to a nonprofit corporation, which then would channel the dollars immediately to parents in the form of a scholarship to send their children to schools of their choice. This is the most direct way to bypass federal and local bureaucracy and get more dollars into the classrooms. The bill leaves public school funding intact. The D.C. Student Opportunity Scholarship Act would not remove any money from the public school system. It would leave public schools not only with extra classroom space, but also with additional per-pupil funding.