Hanushek argued that resources would be better used elsewhere, perhaps to improve teacher quality. Trying to reduce all class sizes has the danger of reducing teacher quality, since more teachers would be needed. Isabel Sawhill then led a discussion of vouchers. Advocates also argue that competition will lead public schools to improve, although this could also happen if people can choose among multiple public schools. If public schools become worse as a result, this harms the children who do not have access to vouchers.
Opponents also argue against supporting private religious schools.
Many voucher programs involve sums of money that do not make all private schools accessible, leaving a choice mostly between public schools and religious schools. Sawhill noted that one can design a voucher program to accomplish almost any objective one wants. So the devil is in the details of program design, a point that has often been missed in the heated debate about this issue. Voucher programs are still too recent to fully know what impact they have. The three studies that have evaluated current programs have found conflicting results.