Do Students Learn More Where Parents Have More Educational Choices?

Educational freedom is sometimes accused of being an ideological term, so let me frame it in an analytic context. There have been several school choice experiments in the last few years. These experiments had a structure that yielded quality results because students were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Some students by chance received scholarships to attend private schools and some students by chance did not receive those scholarships and had to return to the public schools. In five different cities in which these experiments have been conducted and in seven different evaluations of these experiments, significant effects in these programs have been discovered. It is now quite clear from this series of well-structured studies that students who are enabled to attend private school perform better academically and experience better outcomes in other dimensions than do students who don=t have those same opportunities.