In recent years, some education reformers have advocated the use of vouchers as a means of improving education. The idea of vouchers in education is not new; a voucher proposal occupies a substantial section of John Stuart Mill’s 1838 essay, On Liberty.1 Nor are vouchers unknown in other arenas: Food Stamps, Medicare and Medicaid are all voucher programs of a kind.

Mill's ideas, though, did not find popular expression until Milton Friedman's 1962 book, Capitalism and Freedom. Among those who were influenced by that book was the government of Chile, which installed a nationwide voucher system, and Ronald Reagan, who, as president, proposed the use of vouchers in this country.

To date, school-voucher experiments have been small and usually in inner-city settings in communities such as Milwaukee, Cleveland, Dayton, NewYork, Washington, DC, and San Antonio. Taxpayer dollars support the Milwaukee and Cleveland programs. Private philanthropists sustain the programs in the other cities.

The nation’s one large, publicly funded voucher program, a statewide systemin Florida, is currently in limbo. A judge ruled it unconstitutional, but in October 2000 his ruling was overturned on appeal.  The case has been appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.  Under the program, Florida students become eligible to receive scholarships to attend private schools if their neighborhood school receives an “F” grade from the sate two years out of four.  All of the schools in danger of receiving a second “F” in 1999-2000 improved their grades sufficiently. Thus, currently, no school’s students qualify for vouchers. Earlier, two schools in Pensacola received consecutive “Fs.” Some 57 students in these two schools received vouchers to attend private schools, and they may continue to attend private schools until the constitutionality of the voucher program is resolved. A second voucher program offering students with disabilities scholarships to private schools if they have not made sufficient progress toward their individual education goals began in the 2000-2001 school year.

In California and Michigan, statewide voucher referenda failed in the election of 2000.  Both propositions went down by margins of 3 to 1, with even minorities voting against them.  It is too early to tell what impact these losses will have on activities of voucher advocates.

Proponents and critics alike of voucher proposals make a number of claims.

Arguments in Favor of Vouchers

  1.  Vouchers will improve student achievement. By allowing students to opt out of failing schools, students can attend schools that serve them better.

To date, the evidence for this has been mixed at best. The outcomes in Milwaukee, for instance, have been hotly debated. One researcher found no difference between the performance of Milwaukee Public School children and those using vouchers. 2 Others found differences favoring vouchers in both reading and mathematics,3 while a third found an advantage only in math.4  This last researcher also observed that the voucher children were in small schools and small classes, conditions known to improve achievement.5  Moreover, in evaluating each of these divergent conclusions, it should be noted that, even if the choice and public school students were the same at the start of the experiment, they certainly were not after four years:  the choice students included in the survey had been in one school all four years, something quite unusual for poor, inner-city children.6

In another recent, widely reported study that purported to show students who used vouchers to enroll in private schools did better than a control group of public school students, the company that gathered and analyzed the data disputed the researchers’ public statements about the conclusions.  Analysts at Mathematica Research said the researchers’ announcement of such results was premature and exaggerated the findings.7

In the study, which examined privately funded voucher programs in New York, Washington, and Dayton, data were extremely mixed. In New York, African-American students showed gains in both years of the study, but other ethnicities showed small, but insignificant, losses. In Washington, D.C., African-Americans in grades 2 through 5 showed a significant gain in year one in math and a significant loss in reading. They showed gains in both subjects in year two. No other ethnic groups gained in either year. In grades 6 through 8, African-Americans showed no change in math and a significant loss in reading in year one, but significant gains in math and no significant gain in reading in year two.  In Dayton, African-Americans showed no significant gains in either subject in year one, but did show a significant gain in reading in year two. No other ethnicities showed gains in either subject in either year.8 

The researchers have failed so far to explain why vouchers appeared to benefit only African American students and not those of other ethnic groups.

Different researchers have obtained differing results because they have made different assumptions about the data. That, in turn, led to different analyses. For instance, one researcher who analyzed data from voucher programs in Milwaukee and New York City concluded that if the voucher students scored higher, it might well be because they attended smaller schools with smaller classes.9

Other researches in other places have yielded similarly equivocal results. This should surprise no one because, in spite of advocates’ statements that“vouchers work” or “the market works,” the impact of local conditions affect voucher outcomes. Voucher advocate Terry Moe has stated the case quite well:

Ideology aside, perhaps the most vexing problem [of voucher research] isthat few researchers who carry out studies of school choice are sensitive toissues of  institutional design or context. They proceed as thought theircase studies reveal something generic about choice or markets when, in fact --as the Milwaukee case graphically testifies -- much of what they observe is dueto the specific rules, restrictions and control mechanisms that shape howchoice and markets happen to operate in a particular setting. As any economistwould be quick to point out, the effects of choice and markets vary, sometimesenormously depending on the institutional context. The empirical literature onschool choice does little to shed light on these contingencies and, indeed, byportraying choice and markets as generic reforms with generic effects, oftenbreeds more confusion than understanding.10

  2.  Vouchers will increase the diversity of schools and giveparents a wider range of choices.

To date, no data really bear on this issue because voucher students have been in small experiments.  Only two new schools in Cleveland opened to accept voucher students, and these promptly shifted to charter school status when that option became available (the vouchers were worth only $2000, but as a charter, the schools receive $4500 for each student). In San Antonio,children use vouchers at well-established Catholic schools. In Milwaukee, the vast majority of voucher recipients have been established Catholic schools or established non-sectarian private schools. Some new schools have sprung up in Milwaukee in the decade since that city’s experiment with vouchers forlow-income students began, but a few of them have turned out to be fly-by-night operations that shut down after failing to deliver on promises. Clearly, the voucher option increases the number of schools available, but whether it increases diversity is another question.

One might draw from the more extensive literature about charter schools, for which the same claim is made. There, studies have found that the charter schools do not serve as laboratories for innovation. Indeed, one evaluation of charters in Michigan found that nothing had been tried in a charter school that hadn't already been tried in public schools.11 International evidence of the results of the competitive market on schools also clearly shows that, rather than stimulating diversity in schools and curriculum, exactly the opposite seems to be the case.  Most schools become even more alike and tend to employ methods and curricula that have not been proven to succeed.12

  3.  Vouchers will increase accountability. Unhappy parents will vote with their feet and their pocketbooks, making the schools directly accountable.

There is to date no evidence that this will happen. As noted, most schools in voucher programs are long established schools. Furthermore, it is often extremely difficult for parents who do not have flexible jobs and must often depend on public transportation to move their children around a city. While a few children may be helped by vouchers, there may be even less financial support for inner city schools in the long run, leading to fewer resources for those parents who “choose” to keep their children in under-funded schools because, notwithstanding vouchers, they cannot avail themselves ofprivate education.

Perhaps more importantly, accountability measures that are regularly applied to public schools are not applied to voucher-accepting schools. Florida, for example, awards public schools letter grades, A through F, based largely on test scores. The pupils in a school that receives an F for two consecutive years become eligible for vouchers. But the private schools that accept these students do not have to administer the tests that were used to grade the public schools in the first place. Similarly, Catholic schools in Milwaukee have refused to release test scores, scores that would be a part of the public record in public schools. Free market principles hold that for markets to work consumers must have access to high quality information about the product. This does not appear to be forthcoming from voucher schools. 

  4.  Vouchers will make public schools more responsive to parents' wishes because, again, parents have the option to leave. 

Again, there is no evidence that this is happening. A study of existing public and private schools found that differences in communities overwhelmed differences in governance. That is, public and private schools in suburban neighborhoods resembled each other. Public and private schools in poor urban neighborhoods resembled each other, but differed from the schools in the more affluent communities.13

Public suburban schools were actually more responsive to parents, the 1999 study by Richard Rothstein and others found. These parents, the authors noted,thought they had both a right and a responsibility to take an active role in their children's education. Private schools were more successful at telling parents that in matters of curriculum and instruction, all decisions rested with the school.14

In poor areas, both public and private schools struggled to involve the parents. One could say that these schools were trying to hold the parents accountable. Private schools were more successful at this than public schools because they could make involvement a condition of admission. On the other hand, the involvement usually did not involve academic activities. In poor public schools, parental involvement was dominated by complaints about a poor grade or an “unfair” disciplinary action.15

  5.  Vouchers enable poor people to obtain a good educationfor their children.

Because, as previously noted, achievement outcomes from voucher programs are in doubt, this might better be stated as “vouchers might allow a few poor people to get a better education for their children.”

The number of existing private schools in the nation could handle only about 4% of the existing public school children in the nation. Free-market theorists would likely contend that new schools would spring up to handle the demands, but this is questionable. For one thing, the existing for-profits such as Edison and TesseracT have yet to be profitable.16 TesseracT, staggering under $50 million in debt in spite of $8,000 tuition, barely avoided total collapse heading into the 2000-2001 school year, but by October had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.17 Nobel Learning Communities is profitable—and charges $6,500 tuition.18

Moreover, as those who wished to start charter schools have found, it is extremely difficult to obtain space or funding to build space for a new school. And while Catholic schools, which have been hemorrhaging pupils in recent years, would no doubt welcome the vouchers, many other private schools have shown little or no inclination to expand.

Arguments Against Vouchers

  1.  Vouchers drain funds from public schools.

This clearly occurs. People have not made much over this to date because the voucher population is small and because increasing enrollments in many districts offset the losses. Indeed, Roy Romer, former governor of Colorado and now Superintendent of School in Los Angeles, is supporting the development of more charter schools to ease the pressure in his overcrowded buildings. In an area with stable or declining enrollments, however, vouchers would siphon funds from the public schools.

Some people have claimed that vouchers will actually increase funding for public schools because the voucher is less than the per-pupil-expenditure of the public school. This view mistakenly assumes that the public and private schools divide a fixed sum of money per child. In fact, schools’ state funds typically are based on enrollment, and as enrollment—usually based on aparticular day’s attendance—declines, so do the funds. In the first year of Cleveland’s voucher program, for instance, funding consisted of $5.25 million taken from Cleveland’s share of state aid.19

  2.  Vouchers will “skim” or “cream” higher achieving students, thus leaving public schools with a higher proportion of more difficult to educate children and fewer funds for that education.

In several instances, students using vouchers had higher test scores than their peers before they entered the voucher programs.20 While most children came from low-income families, parents of voucher-using children tended to be wealthier, better-educated and more involved in their children’s education both at school and at home.21

  3. Vouchers will have negative effects on teachers and administrators, as well as students.

The data also indicate worrisome effects on teachers and administrators. While some might claim that vouchers do not causeadded hardship for schools, an extensive body of international research onplacing schools in a competitive market can lead to exactly the oppositeconclusion.22 Much more time is spent on maintainingthe image of a “good” school, with much less time spent by teachers andadministrators on curricular substance. Since it is comparative test scoresthat determine whether a school is “good” or “bad,” children who do performwell on such reductive tests are seen as welcome. Those who do not are oftendiscouraged or are marginalized. Once again, the vast majority of childrenharmed by such reforms are exactly those whom voucher supporters state they aresupporting. These conditions exist not because teachers do not already workextremely hard or are uncaring. Rather, markets in schools seem to worsen,rather than improve, work load, pressure, and access to resources.

4.  There will be a loss of accountability.

Although voucher proponents hold out the goal of more accountability, it is possible that, in fact, there will be less. As noted, in some instances, the schools that receive voucher students do not have to administer the state tests. In the area of finance, private schools can avoid the kind of audits that are routine and public in public schools.

This again is an area that has received little attention because the number of voucher students is small. It certainly seems reasonable though, that if the voucher movement attains any size, the public will demand an accounting of how the public dollars are spent and what they accomplished. With “accountability” on the lips of so many people in regards to public schools, it is hard to see how this could be avoided for private schools.

Indeed, in Europe, where government subsidy of private schools is common, the private schools are often constrained by the same rules and laws that govern public schools: they must have teachers with the same certification, they must offer these teachers the same salary, they must follow the same curriculum and, in some instances, use the same pedagogy.23

  5.  Vouchers will cost private schools their autonomy.

This is perhaps the converse of point No. 3 above. A number of educators in Christian schools, for instance, oppose vouchers because they believe that vouchers will inevitably lead to control by the government. Home schoolers in California opposed that state’s November 2000 referendum on vouchers for the same reason.24 

On a large scale, vouchers would seem likely to fragment communities. When a family commits to a public school, it commits to good education for the entire community. A family using a voucher is acting only in its self-interest. In general, it would seem that vouchers would remove discussion of social issues from the public domain. Jeffrey Henig captured this problem well:

Rather than simply focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of private vs. public institutions as service-delivery mechanisms, we need to focus on the differences between private and public institutions and processes as vehicles for deliberation, debate and decision making.The real danger in market-based proposals for choice is not that they might allow some students to attend privately run schools at public expense, but that they will erode the public forums in which decisions with societal consequences can democratically be resolved.

The market orientation considers education as a product of public and private decisions; as such the issues involved are generic ones applicable to other domestic policies. But education also has a special status as a producer of values, perspectives, knowledge, and skills that will be applied in the ongoing enterprise of collective deliberation and adjustment.

While the risk of abuse [from inappropriate socialization] must be acknowledged, public schools have anothercharacteristic that makes this risk potentially manageable. Compared to other forces of socialization—the family, religion, the mass media—the schools are more open to public scrutiny and democratic intervention. 25

The public schools are, in Benjamin Barber's phrase, “workshops of our democracy.”26 This space needs to be strengthened and protected, not turned over to a market.