A Double Standard on School Choice
It’s always interesting to see the mental gymnastics employed by people who argue against parental choice in education. A recent Brookings Institute commentary, based on a report in Education Policy Analysis Archives, is a good example. The authors ground their criticisms in a distorted history of school choice and a public school-based definition of how to measure success, two flaws that largely nullify the review. Moreover, they apparently fail to realize that their critiques of school vouchers apply at least as forcefully to public schools, which the authors give a pass.
Let’s start with segregation. Yes, vouchers were used to resist integration in the South, and that history is shameful. But public schools themselves were segregated by law for decades. The entire reason Brown v. Board of Education happened was because public school systems enforced racial segregation. Public schools didn’t integrate because they were morally superior—they integrated because courts forced them to, often with communities fighting it tooth and nail. If we’re using historical segregation as evidence that an education system is fundamentally flawed, then public schools fail that test.
Even the Prince Edward County example the authors cite is more an indictment of public schools than of vouchers. Just read their own description: “the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors closed the school district by eliminating all funding for public schools.” This was a public school system that chose to shut down entirely rather than integrate. Yet somehow the authors present this as primarily a cautionary tale about vouchers.
Furthermore, it’s disappointing that Brookings would give credence to a common falsehood: “The voucher movement began in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education (1954).” As the Cato Institute’s School Choice Timeline shows, the push for what we now call vouchers dates back at least as far as Thomas Paine in 1791, who wanted poor families to receive four pounds per child per year to pay for their education.
The article also glosses over the reality that many voucher programs have been championed by black parents and lawmakers, particularly in cities where public schools have failed their kids for generations. Milwaukee’s voucher program, which the authors mention, was pushed by Polly Williams, a black Democratic state representative who saw it as a lifeline for low-income families stuck in struggling schools. Cleveland’s program had similar roots. These weren’t schemes cooked up by segregationists—they were responses to public school systems that weren’t working for the most disadvantaged families.
The authors claim vouchers have expanded “despite unanswered questions about effectiveness” and with “limited evidence.” Seriously? Do they not realize state governments essentially monopolized education through public schools without any requirement to prove their effectiveness first? We’ve been running this experiment for well over a century, and the evidence that public schools aren’t working for many students—especially low-income students and students of color—is overwhelming. It’s disingenuous to require arbitrary evidence before embracing parental choice while letting public schools off the hook.
Then there’s the question of how we measure success. The report focuses on state test scores, but that’s a narrow and questionable metric for judging whether school choice is working. State test scores tell you one thing: how students perform on standardized assessments aligned with public school curricula. They don’t capture whether a student is thriving in an environment that meets their needs, whether they’re engaged and motivated, whether they’re developing skills and knowledge, or whether they’re in a school that shares their family’s values and approach to education.
Every child is unique, which is why one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to education. Some thrive in structured environments; others need more flexibility. Some families prioritize STEM; others want strong arts programs or language immersion or faith-based education. The value of choice isn’t just about whether it produces marginally higher test scores—it’s about matching kids with environments where they can flourish. A public school that’s great for one student might be a terrible fit for another, and there’s real value in families having options to find what works for their children.
The concern that private schools will “select students, exclude students with disabilities, and disregard public accountability standards” highlights another double standard. School choice opponents love to say, “public schools educate all students,” but reality says otherwise. While public schools can’t legally exclude students who live in their attendance zone, they’ve found plenty of ways around that, such as pushing out difficult students through disciplinary policies, steering kids with disabilities into separate programs, and allowing de facto segregation through district boundaries and school assignment policies. And despite all the regulations and oversight, many public schools continue to underperform without meaningful consequences.
The authors want to judge vouchers based on their worst historical example while ignoring the fact that public schools were guilty of similar wrongdoing. They demand evidence of voucher “success” without evidence that their definition of success is the one that matters.
For many families—especially those in communities where public schools haven’t delivered—the question isn’t whether vouchers are perfect. It’s whether they might offer something better than a status quo that has consistently let their kids down. And the fact that choice itself has value, allowing families to find educational environments where their children can actually thrive, shouldn’t be dismissed just because it doesn’t show up neatly in test score data.