Arguments for Colorado Local Private School Choice

Created November 2010

1. Private school choice programs improve public school performance.

• More than 20 credible studies indicate school choice programs introduce more
competition among all public and private schools, compelling them to go out of their
way to attract and retain students. Not a single empirical study has ever found
that outcomes at American public schools got worse when exposed to
school choice programs, and numerous studies have found that they
improve over time.
 One reason vouchers improve public schools is that they enable parents to find the
right particular school for each child’s unique educational needs.
 Vouchers also provide positive incentives for responsiveness and improvement that
are lacking in the traditional public school system. When public schools know that
students have a choice and can leave using vouchers, those schools have a much
more powerful incentive to improve their performance and keep those students from
walking out the door.

Two recent research projects give evidence supporting this positive conclusion:
• A 2010 study by David Figlio and Cassandra Hart of Northwestern University
examined the competitive effects of the Florida Tax-Credit Scholarship Program on
public schools. They learned that more access and variety of private schools
increased the competitive pressure on public schools in the wake of the policy
announcement.
• A 2009 study by Jay Greene and Ryan Marsh of the University of Arkansas considered
the systemic effects of expanding school choice in Milwaukee. Greene and Marsh
found that public school students in Milwaukee fare better academically
when they have more free private options through the voucher program.

2. Private school choice programs provide financial benefit to public schools.

• When students leave public schools using voucher programs, they free up
more money for the students who remain. Taking a student out of public school
removes the cost of educating that student. Most of these savings remain in local
school budgets where they benefit other students; the rest of the savings go into
state budgets.
• States and cities with school choice programs have all increased their per-
student instructional spending in the years since the programs began. The
cost of a voucher or scholarship for a participant in a school choice program is less
than what would have been spent on that student if he or she had remained in public
schools. Data from the U.S. Department of Education confirm that the same holds
true for total education spending.

Susan Aud has conducted the largest study on the fiscal effects of school choice. She
examined the fiscal effects of all existing voucher and tax-credit scholarship programs in the
U.S. from 1990 through 2006:
• Aud found that no school choice program had a negative overall fiscal impact, and
most of them saved significant amounts of money. Her results showed that school
choice programs saved a net total of $22 million for state budgets and $422
million for local school districts between 1990 and 2006, a grand total fiscal
benefit of $444 million.
• To ensure that the study accounted for fixed costs, she only included public school
cost reductions in the category of instructional expenditures, which excludes
transportation, lunch programs, administration, and many other non-instructional

Source Material: The Foundation for Educational Choice; Institute for Justice
 Arguments for Colorado Local Private School Choice
Created November 2010

expenditures. As a result, the savings calculated in the study reflect a

conservative estimate of the real cost reductions from school choice
programs.

3. Private school choice programs are constitutional in the U.S. and Colorado.

Federal: U.S. Constitution

• In the 2002 landmark Zellman v. Simmons-Harris case, the U.S. Supreme Court
upheld the constitutionality of Cleveland’s school voucher program by a 5-4 vote. The
justices made it very clear that when an individual uses public funds to make a
private choice—in this case when a parent uses a voucher to send his or her child to
a private school (including religious schools)—it does not violate the First
Amendment. If a school choice program allows “true private choice” and it is
“religiously neutral,” then it is constitutional.
• The 2002 Zellman decision is in line with a long series of precedent:
 In 1983 the court upheld Minnesota’s income tax deduction for educational expenses,
including private-school tuition.
 In 1993, the court unanimously upheld the use of public funds by a blind student
pursuing a divinity degree at a religious college.
 The G.I. Bill and Pell grants are constitutional. Both federal programs offer vouchers
to college students so they can attend the public or private school of their choice,
including religious colleges and universities.
 Federal courts have recognized the constitutionality of Colorado’s College
Opportunity Fund (COF) program, which provides state-funded scholarship assistance
for students to enroll in private institutions of higher education, including religious
schools.

State: Colorado Constitution

While recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have favored voucher programs, some state
constitutions have language prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to support religious
schools. However, as the Institute for Justice argues, both tax credit and voucher programs
are school choice options for Colorado:
• Although Colorado’s Constitution contains a Compelled Support Clause and two
Blaine Amendments, Colorado state courts have interpreted them narrowly. In an
important 1982 case rejecting a Blaine Amendment challenge to Colorado’s higher
education grant program, the Colorado Supreme Court explicitly noted that
such scholarships aid students, not the schools they happen to attend,
religious or otherwise.
• Future voucher legislation should note the Colorado Supreme Court’s 2004 decision
in Owens and fund the program exclusively through state rather than local revenues.
However, a locally-adopted school choice program addresses the concerns
about local control in Article IX of the state constitution.

Source Material: The Foundation for Educational Choice; Institute for Justice