SCHOOL CHOICE: SUPPORTERS AND OPPONENTS

I. INTRODUCTION In recent decades, many nations have introduced forms of school choice. These school choice programs take the form of open enrollment, tuition tax credits, school vouchers, and charter schools. Each program makes it less costly for a person to send their children to a school other than the tax-funded school to which they are assigned. Bangladesh, Belize, Chile, Colombia. Czech Republic, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have systems where vouchers may be used toward the public or private school of the parents' choice. British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and New Zealand also have state support for private schools. (1) Within the United States, voucher programs have been proposed or enacted in California, Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Maine, D.C., Colorado, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, San Antonio, Atlanta, Cleveland, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, Wyoming, Georgia, Kansas, and other states and cities (Kenny 2005; Merrifield 2002). In 2005, the Arizona senate passed an unrestricted private school voucher bill. In 2006, Governor Pataki introduced a tax credit for parents in New York Who choose private schools, joining seven other states that have private school tuition tax credits or deductions. Thirty-three states have open enrollment programs, including 15 states that require inter-district open enrollment, and charter schools are found in 40 U.S. states. In 2011 Ohio's House of Representatives approved a budget that would open charter school operation to for-profit firms, double the number of charter schools an entity can sponsor, and significantly expand the state-wide voucher program (Brown 2011). How has school choice become so prevalent? Supporters of choice have won many battles against those who oppose school choice. So who are its supporters and opponents? To answer this question, we conducted a phone survey in Ohio to examine attitudes about school choice. Ohio provides an excellent sample as there are a variety of public and private schools, charter schools, two voucher programs, and an open enrollment program in the state. The survey results are linked to an especially rich data set that includes information about respondents' houses, the quality of the assigned local schools, and demographic characteristics of the neighborhoods in which they live. Our unique data set allows us to re-examine prior studies' findings and test new hypotheses. This study uncovers at least five new findings and five findings that contradict previous research. similar to our study's asking people about whether or not they support school choice. A different study (Brunner, Sonstelie, and Thayer 2001) examines Los Angeles County's 1993 voucher vote on Proposition 174. Hsieh and Urquiola (2006) examine Chile's voucher program. Kenny (2005) examines a variety of U.S. voucher votes by Congress and state legislatures. Stoddard and Corcoran (2007) study charter school authorization by state legislatures and charter school adoption by school districts, and Corcoran and Stoddard (2011) examine referenda returns for proposed charter school laws in Washington State. California and Washington are important states, and Chile's voucher program has a 20-year history to examine, but Ohio has yet to be studied. Ohio is the seventh most populous state, with 11.5 million residents. It is about as representative of the United States as any state gets, having six fairly large central cities, hundreds of suburbs, small industrial cities outside the urban areas, prosperous rural farm communities, and poor rural Appalachian areas. Because we know the exact address of our respondents, we are able to match our survey responses with several other data sources, giving our study more control variables than previous studies. This allows us to re-examine previous findings and test new hypotheses. Stoddard and Corcoran (2007) and Corcoran and Stoddard (2011) examine support at the state or school district levels. …