Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440

www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev

Can parents choose the best schools for their children?

Joseph L. Bast a,∗, Herbert J. Walberg b
a
The Heartland Institute, 19 South LaSalle Street 903, Chicago, IL 60603, USA
b
Hoover Institution, 180 East Pearson Street 3607, Chicago, IL 60611, USA

Received 21 April 2003; accepted 22 August 2003

Abstract

One of Lewis Solmon’s research interests is whether parents can choose the best schools for their children. This
paper shows how economic principles predict parents would do a better job choosing schools for their children than
do experts in government agencies. Three types of empirical research relevant to the hypothesis are reviewed: surveys
showing parents rate schools the same as experts (showing they have sufficient information to choose correctly); surveys
showing most parents choose schools on the basis of their perceived academic quality (showing they are choosing in
the child’s best long-term interests); and data showing student academic achievement gains are higher in schools of
choice than in traditional public schools. We conclude that Solmon’s belief that parents can choose the best schools
for their children is corroborated by economic theory and empirical research.
 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

JEL classification: I2-128

Keywords: Educational vouchers; School choice

1. Introduction grade” question showed an exact match for 11 of the

“Critics of school choice policies,” Lewis Solmon
(2003) wrote recently, “have long questioned parents’
ability to choose the best school for their child. Do par-
ents, the argument goes, have the time, qualifications,
and information to make informed decisions about the
quality of their child’s school?” (p. 9). Solmon tested the
critics’ fears by comparing how parents and experts at
the Arizona Department of Education rated 239 charter
schools.
The results were striking. “Across the board, state
officials and parents gave nearly identical grades to the
charter schools in question.” (p. 10) Parents and state
officials agreed on the best charter school, and the aver-
age grade point average of each school on the “overall
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-312-377-4000; fax: +1-
312-377-5000.
E-mail address: jbast@heartland.org (J.L. Bast).
14 schools selected with the largest number of parents
responding to the survey.
Solmon’s test, conducted with the precision and
thoroughness that characterizes all his writing, is
revealing, though opponents of school choice can argue
that charter school parents are more informed or mot-
ivated than public school parents, the sample size is too
small, Arizona is not a typical state, and so on. Empirical
data from small school choice experiments can persuade
people with open minds that parents can indeed choose
schools wisely, but it cannot establish a universal prin-
ciple or theory that applies in all cases.
This paper contends the hypothesis that parents can
choose the best schools for their children conforms with
economic theory and is not refuted by reliable empirical
data. In Section 2 we describe how friends and foes of
school choice characterize the hypothesis. In Section 3
we show how it is supported by fundamental economic
theories. In Section 4 we review data from various tests
of the hypothesis and find strong (but not unanimous)

0272-7757/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2003.08.003
432 J.L. Bast, H.J. Walberg / Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440
empirical support. Section 5 contains a brief interpret-
ation and concluding remarks.
2. Can parents do a better job choosing the schools
their children attend than “experts” working for
governments?
The current system of school finance, write Coons and
Sugarman (1978), is based on the notion that “local
government agents make better school assignments for
individual children they have never met than would the
family, even were the family to be supported by pro-
fessional counseling” (p. 47). Coons and Sugarman also
point out that “the question is not whether the judgment
of the isolated and unassisted family is superior to the
professional cadre of a school or a district. It is rather,
when all available knowledge, personal and professional,
about the particular school is assembled, to whom shall
society commit the final choice” (p. 51).
The formal statement of the hypothesis needs to assert
not only that parents can choose the best schools for their
children, but that they would do so more often than the
available alternative, which is student assignment by
public school bureaucracies. Moreover, what constitutes
the “best school” for a child is fraught with compli-
cations, starting with the implication that there exists a
single best learning environment for every student
(doubtful) and uniform agreement on the purpose of
schooling and most valuable outcomes (definitely not).
A reasonable rendering of the hypothesis, then, could
be: Parents would do a better job choosing the schools
their children attend than “experts” working for govern-
ments. This is only one of several hypotheses put for-
ward by advocates of school choice and does not by
itself make the case for policy change.
Our formulation of the hypothesis is consistent with
how it has been characterized by friends and foes of
school choice. Milton and Rose Friedman (1980) write,
“No doubt, some parents lack interest in their children’s
schooling or the capacity and desire to choose wisely.
However, they are in a small minority. In any event, our
present system unfortunately does little to help their chil-
dren” (p. 160).
David Harmer (1993), a coauthor of California’s 1993
Parental Choice in Education Initiative, writes, “Most
parents love their children more than anyone and any-
thing else. Parents in the poorest circumstances seem to
have the strongest desire for their children to do better.
They want good schools and they know where good
schools are” (p. xv).
Opponents of school choice recognize the hypothesis
and believe it is false. “When parents do select another
school, academic concerns often are not central to the
decision,” claims the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching (1992, p. 13). “Equity determ-
ined by parental choice assumes that all parents are fully
informed of their choices and fully capable of acting in
their child’s best interests,” writes Saltman (2000). “This
has been found not to be the case.” (p. 24)
Finally, some advocates of only limited school choice
trace their doubts to our hypothesis. Etzioni (1992), in
the foreword to a book advocating school choice, warns:
“There are dangers in the simplistic introduction of com-
petition into areas of human services. In these areas the
consumer’s knowledge is usually limited; it is more dif-
ficult for parents to evaluate education than, say, a can
of beans” (p. xi).
Hill, Pierce and Guthrie (1997), who support limited
school choice, are similarly cautious: “In education as in
health care, consumers do not have as much information
as the professionals, and are therefore at a disadvantage.
… The only way markets work effectively with asym-
metric information is when consumers trust that suppliers
are likely to act in the consumers’ interests. There must
be a relationship of trust created by personal relation-
ships and shared values.” (pp. 63–64.)
3. What economic theory tells us about parents
choosing schools
The prediction that parents would do a better job
choosing schools for their children than experts in
government agencies is well grounded in economic
theory. First we explain why parents can be expected to
be good choosers, and then why government experts are
unlikely to do as well.
3.1. Why parents would be expected to choose
correctly
Parents choose schools for their children based on
costs and benefits (incentives), the availability of infor-
mation, and the presence of opportunities (choices). Par-
ents who choose the right schools for their children bene-
fit in several ways. They see the skills and norms they
value transferred to a loved one; their children are apt
to be happier, better behaved, less prone to complaining,
and less apt to “get in trouble”; a well-educated child is
more likely to become financially independent and a
happy adult; and financially independent and happy
adults are more likely to provide aid and comfort in the
parents’ old age and produce healthy grandchildren. It
would be easy to produce a similarly long list of costs
borne by parents who choose the wrong schools for
their children.
“For most parents, children are a source of psychic
income or satisfaction, and, in the economist’s termin-
ology, children could be considered a consumption
good,” Becker (1976) writes. “Children may sometimes
provide money income and are then a production good
 J.L. Bast, H.J. Walberg / Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440
as well” (p. 172). Parents have incentives to invest in
their children for much the same reasons as they invest
in other durable goods. Of course, children are more than
appliances that can talk (see Morse, 2001), but this dif-
ference makes parents more rather than less likely to sub-
ordinate their own interests to those of their children.
Do parents know enough about their children’s edu-
cational needs and the offerings of competing schools to
make informed decisions? Coons and Sugarman (1978)
write, “At the outset we concede that school pro-
fessionals know more than families about how certain
types of education have been found to affect broadly
defined types or classes of children. Such knowledge is
useful for many purposes; however, it does not translate
into the kind of understanding about particular children
that comes from prolonged domestic intimacy” (p. 53).
The distinction they make is quite similar to one Hayek
(1968) made between “knowledge of the particular cir-
cumstances of time and place” and aggregate data avail-
able to central planners (p. 80). It has the same impli-
cation: decision-making authority is best put in the hands
of those who are closest to and most familiar with a situ-
ation
Parents should not be presumed to be ill equipped to
make this decision. They are trusted, after all, to choose
doctors and hospitals, homes, automobiles, food, and
many other complicated and expensive goods and ser-
vices. Imperfect and asymmetric information are the rule,
not the exception, in market processes. They are rou-
tinely overcome by advertising, experience, producer
reputations, guarantees and warranties, and other per-
sonal and public sources of information (Ekelund &
Saurman, 1988). Without compelling proof, they cannot
be said to justify regulation (Beals & Muris, 1993), much
less the sweeping restrictions on parental choice
observed in public education today.
In the case of K-12 schooling, the supply of infor-
mation about school quality is large and growing. Many
states now issue “school report cards” that are sent to
parents, available on Web sites, and widely reported by
newspapers. No Child Left Behind, the federal school
accountability act, requires a significant increase in stud-
ent testing, school ranking, and reporting of results to
parents. Standard & Poor’s has a Web site
(http://www.ses.standardandpoors.com/) that provides
extensive information on most public schools in most of
the country, as do many state-level think tanks and civic
organizations. Advocacy and reform groups and schools
have all increased their advertising and promotional
efforts as school choice spreads.
If parents rather than government experts chose the
schools children attend, would new schools arise
enabling parents to exercise their new right? Assuming
public funding would follow children to their new
schools via a scholarship or voucher program, there is
little doubt demand would rise. A survey by Public
433
Agenda (1999) found 55% of parents with children cur-
rently in government schools (and 67% of inner-city
parents) would choose private schools if tuition was not
a concern. The Harwood Group (1995) found large
majorities of parents and upwards of 80% of African-
American families would choose private schools over
government schools if tuition were not a consideration.
School choice would not increase the total amount of
schooling demanded, but merely change the mix of pub-
lic and private schooling. Resources, including facilities
and personnel, would be released from the public sector
in amounts roughly equal to their acquisition by the priv-
ate sector. The private K-12 schooling sector constitutes
a very small part of a marketplace that includes public
pre-kindergarten and K-12 schools, public and private
technical and business training, and public and private
higher education. Therefore, even if they were to grow
rapidly, private K-12 schools would probably have little
effect on wages or rents.
None of the inputs needed for K-12 schooling is
especially scarce or specialized, with the possible excep-
tion of qualified teachers on some subjects. Schools can
and do operate in a variety of places, including shopping
malls, museums, universities, and office buildings
(Seder, 1999). If schooling were provided in a competi-
tive market, we would expect to see greater diversity in
size and location as entrepreneurs tailor the traditional
school and classroom to meet the interests and needs of
parents and students.
Markets harmonize the interests of people with differ-
ent expectations and knowledge, not mythical and ident-
ical rational utility maximizers. The subjectivity of
values means markets not only allocate scarce resources
among competing purposes, but also enable their parti-
cipants to discover and create values, a process integral
to other freedoms to act, form judgments, make choices,
and think (Hayek, 1973; Gray, 1984).
The idea that markets are discovery processes bears
distinctly on the question of what school is best for a
child. Plainly, there is no uniform right answer for all
children. Instead, the “best schools” are discovered by
parents and children as they learn about and try compet-
ing alternatives, and often vicariously by observing the
experience of others. This discovery process can only
take place when parents are given the opportunity to
choose and schools the obligation to compete with one
another. Solmon (2003), referring once again to Ari-
zona’s charter schools, writes, “Indeed this might be a
case where supply creates its own demand. A new char-
ter school that offers a particular curriculum, is con-
veniently located, or caters to special student needs may
attract students who would not have been interested in
a charter school if that particular charter school had not
opened” (p. 36).
Because their management is decentralized and par-
ents are free to choose among a variety of schools com-
434 J.L. Bast, H.J. Walberg / Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440
peting for their children, private schools can specialize
in creating schools parents want (Merrifield, 2001). The
market approach to schooling enables parents and chil-
dren to reveal their preferences by choosing schools that
specialize in delivering the courses and learning environ-
ment they want without requiring that all schools offer
such courses.
3.2. Why government experts do not choose wisely
Public choice theory offers three reasons why we
would predict government agencies would be inferior to
parents at choosing schools for children. First, the
rewards for choosing correctly and the cost of mistakes
are not as high for government officials as they are for
parents.
Administrators, school counselors, and principals
spend much less time with each child than that child’s
parents. They are less likely to be bothered by the fact
that the skills and norms a child is acquiring are different
from their own, do not have to listen to the child’s com-
plaints or pleas, do not have to explain to neighbors or
police if the child becomes disorderly, do not face the
prospect of providing financial support to an unskilled
young adult after graduation, and do not anticipate hav-
ing to rely on the graduate to provide aid and comfort
in their old age.
The typical government expert does not view students
as Becker’s “durable goods,” worthy of investment, but
as inputs in a production process overseen by a bureauc-
racy. Bureaucrats act (as all people do) in ways intended
to increase their income, authority, prestige, or leisure
(Niskanen, 1971; Borcherding, 1977). The bureaucratic
approach is to minimize discretion and routinize pro-
cedures as much as possible, usually in the name of fair-
ness and efficiency but often simply to reduce effort and
increase leisure time. Because government bureaucrats
typically operate in a realm where competition is scarce
and accountability for results has been weak, their
actions are sometimes at odds with the best interests of
the public (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; Eggers & O’Le-
ary, 1995; Twight, 2002).
Understanding the nature of bureaucracies, one could
easily predict that government experts would tend to
assign students to large, something-for-everyone neighb-
orhood schools (to capture economies of scale) based on
where parents live (to keep transportation costs low),
with exceptions allowed only for disruptive students or
to achieve politically imposed racial integration goals.
With only minor variations dating to the early 1990s,
this is in fact the system in place in most of the country
today. While mechanistically “fair” and “efficient,” it is
difficult to imagine an assignment scheme less likely to
assign students to schools suited to their particular learn-
ing styles, interests, or special needs.
Second, government regulators are often captured by
the industries they are supposed to regulate because
industry representatives influence political decisions
affecting the regulator’s budget, restrict access to infor-
mation needed to implement regulations, and promise
employment after regulators leave government service
(Stigler, 1971). In the case of schools, this is apparent
in the influence teacher unions exercise over most school
principals, superintendents, and school boards
(Lieberman, 2000; Lieberman, Troy, & Haar, 1994). The
interests of union leaders are different from and therefore
compete with those of the child.
Third, to win election, school board members focus
on the needs of the median or typical voter, and so they
neglect interests that are not widely shared (Mueller,
1979; Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000). Because student needs
and parent preferences are so diverse, debates over
school policies—curricula, discipline, facilities, sports
programs, and so on—become win–lose propositions,
rather than a market-driven discovery process that allows
all parents and children to win. As Hill (2001) writes,
“Defining public education as a result of deliberation
whose results are binding on everyone eliminates the
possibility of a differentiated solution—where parents
who object to a particular sequence of instruction would
not have to subject their children to it” (p. 288).
In conclusion, the hypothesis that parents would do a
better job choosing schools for their children than do
experts in government agencies is consistent with funda-
mental principles of economics.
4. Testing the hypothesis: results of empirical
research
School choice is not permitted on a wide enough scale
in the US for any single study to provide compelling
proof that a national school choice program would work
as its advocates say. Moe (1995) warns against
attempting to make such generalizations on the basis of
small and often heavily regulated experiments (p. 20).
However, the data reviewed below and summarized in
Table 1 reach well beyond voucher experiments and are
sufficient to support our more-narrow hypothesis, that
parents would do a better job choosing their children’s
schools than do experts in government agencies. The evi-
dence comes from three kinds of tests.
4.1. Parents rate schools the same as experts
Solmon (2003), quoted at the beginning of this essay,
compared charter school ratings given by parents with
children enrolled in them to ratings given by government
experts, and found a nearly exact match. If the experts
are right, it cannot be said that charter school parents in
Arizona are unable to correctly identify good and bad
schools.
 J.L. Bast, H.J. Walberg / Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440
Table 1
Summary of research on school choice
Nature of choice Summary of findings
Public school choice Parents and experts rate schools similarly
Small public school districts that compete for
students with neighboring districts achieve
higher test score growth
Public schools that compete with private,
charter, and voucher schools achieve higher
test score growth
Private schools Parents choose schools based on academic
achievement, not convenience
Catholic high schools achieve higher
graduation, college enrollment, and college
graduation rates than public schools
Test score growth is greater in Catholic
schools than in public schools
Charter schools Parents and experts rate schools similarly;
parents choose for academic reasons
Test score growth is greater (or no worse) in
charter schools than in public schools
Voucher schools Parents choose voucher schools based on
academic achievement, not convenience
Test score growth is greater in voucher schools
than in public schools, particularly for minority
students
Hoxby (2001) uses a national survey conducted in
1996 by the US Department of Education to compare
how parents rated their public schools with the school’s
value added, defined as the difference between a stud-
ent’s tenth- and eighth-grade scores in reading and math.
She found a strong correlation. For example, only 15%
of parents were “highly satisfied” with schools that were
in the lowest quartile of value added, while 44% of par-
ents were “highly satisfied” with schools in the highest
quartile (p. 117).
Fiske and Ladd (2000), in a largely critical study of
New Zealand’s school choice program, nevertheless
found that parents accurately ranked schools by their
academic performance, though probably by using the
socioeconomic mix of students as a proxy for actual test
scores. (In New Zealand, as in the US, the two are
closely associated.) “Such behavior is probably quite
rational and sensible,” say Fiske and Ladd, “although we
hasten to add that what is rational for individuals may
not be rational for society as a whole” (p. 203).
4.2. Parents make choices based on academic
outcomes
Finding that parents choose schools on the basis of
location (convenience) and extracurricular activities (e.g.
sports) is thought to mean that parents are not putting
435
Sources
Hoxby (2001)
Hoxby (2001); Hoxby (2002); Belfield and Levin (2001)
Teske and Schneider (2001); Belfield and Levin (2001)
Coulson (1999)
Alt and Peter (2003); Neal (1996); Grogger and Neal
(2000); Witte (1996)
Coleman and Hoffer (1987); Chubb and Moe (1990);
Patrinos and Ariasingam (1997); Peterson and Walberg
(2002)
Solmon (2003)
Finn, Manno and Vanourek (2001); Solmon, Paark and
Garcia (2001); Mulholland (1999)
Moe (1995); Witte (2000)
Gill, Timpane, Ross and Brewer (2001); Greene (2001);
Green (2002); Howell, Wolf, Peterson and Campbell
(2001); Peterson (2001); Rouse (2000)
their children’s best interests first. Although it is pre-
sumptuous for researchers to assume that academic
achievement should be the foremost concern of all par-
ents or for all students, this assumption has nevertheless
guided most research and commentary on this subject.
Most parents who choose independent schools do, in
fact, choose on the basis of academics. “Topping the list
of responses in virtually all polls of independent-school
parents is academic quality,” writes Coulson (1999, p.
260). According to Coulson, a 1993 National Household
Survey conducted by the US Department of Education
found “better academic environment” was the most com-
mon reason parents gave for choosing an independent
school. He also cites surveys of Catholic school parents
in Washington DC and nationwide with similar findings.
Solmon’s 2003 study of Arizona charter schools found
the three most common reasons given by parents for
choosing a charter school were “better teachers at this
school” (44.8%), “unhappy with curriculum or teaching
at prior school,” (40.0%), and “people told me this is a
better school” (34.6%) (Table 6, p. 13.). All three
answers indicate a concern for academic achievement.
Surveys of parents participating in voucher programs
have found even higher percentages saying their goal
was higher academic achievement for their children.
According to Witte (2000), 88.6% of parents participat-
ing in Milwaukee’s voucher program ranked “edu-
436 J.L. Bast, H.J. Walberg / Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440
cational quality in chosen school” very important, and
85.7% said “teaching approach or style” was very
important (Table 4.3, p. 63). Private voucher programs
in Milwaukee, San Antonio, and Indianapolis all report
more than 80% of their participants say academic quality
was the most important reason for choosing their chil-
dren’s schools (Moe, 1995).
4.3. Schools of choice tend to outperform traditional
public schools
Higher academic achievement by students attending
schools of choice, after controlling for family socioecon-
omic status, could be evidence that parents are choosing
wisely. However, it could also be evidence that compe-
tition produces better schools by holding schools more
accountable to parents, by encouraging more parental
involvement in children’s schooling, or both. In other
words, even if parents are not choosing wisely, the fact
that producers must compete or that choice motivates
parents to be more engaged in their children’s schooling
may lift their children’s academic achievement. Since
our hypothesis is silent on the mechanism that enables
parents to choose better schools for their children, such
evidence supports our hypothesis.
4.3.1. Public school choice
Approximately 13% of families with children
attending public schools have access to some sort of
school choice program, such as a magnet school, intra-
or inter-district choice, or charter school, and another
39% say their choice of where to live was influenced by
the school their child would attend (Peterson, 2001, p.
250). Approximately 1.2 million students attended 2400
magnet schools in the early 1990s. Intradistrict choice
programs were operating in 24.7% of school districts in
1999–2000, and interdistrict choice programs were
reported in 42.4% (US Department of Education, 2002,
Table 29-1).
Magnet school programs have been strongly criticized
for selective enrollment policies that favor students from
higher socioeconomic backgrounds and with highly mot-
ivated parents (Fuller, Elmore, & Orfield, 1996). How-
ever, Peterson (2001) says “two studies that carefully
addressed this issue still found positive effects from
attendance at a magnet school” (p. 256). Peterson reports
case studies of magnet schools in East Harlem, New
York, and public school choice in Minnesota and Massa-
chusetts also find positive outcomes, but probably cannot
be generalized. Hoxby (1998) believes evaluations of
intradistrict choice programs are often “badly biased” in
part because “even before and after studies do not enable
us to disentangle the effects of intradistrict choice from
the effects of getting a new superintendent who is paid
more and given greater latitude than previous adminis-
trators” (p. 150).
Belfield and Levin (2001) reviewed more than 35
studies of the effect of competition on public schools.
The studies typically analyzed the percentages of stu-
dents enrolled in private schools and the relative scarcity
of public school district monopoly revealed by the pres-
ence of many small districts within a county. They con-
clude: “A sizable majority of these studies report ben-
eficial effects of competition across all outcomes, with
many reporting statistically significant coefficients” (p.
1). The positive benefits included higher test scores,
graduation rates, efficiency (outcomes per unit of per-
student spending), teacher salaries, housing prices, and
adult wages.
Hoxby has written extensively on the effects of school
choice on public schools and their students. In a recent
summary of her findings (Hoxby, 2002) she reports:
∗ Every increase of 1% in an index of inter-district
choice increases 8th-grade reading scores by 3.82
national percentile points, 10th-grade math scores by
3.06, points, and 12th-grade reading scores by 5.77
points. In each case the effect is statistically signifi-
cant.
∗ Every increase of 1% in the share of students who
attend private school in the metropolitan area
increases 8th-grade reading scores by 0.27 national
percentile points, 8th-grade math scores by 0.25
points, 12th-grade reading scores by 0.34 points, and
12th-grade math scores by 0.371 points. In each case
the effect is statistically significant.
∗ Student achievement improved in those public schools
most exposed to competition by voucher schools in
Milwaukee and by charter schools in Michigan and
Arizona, relative to public schools that faced less
competition. The improvement in Milwaukee was
“dramatic,” in Michigan it was “modest,” and in Ari-
zona it was “similar to or just a bit larger than the
gains made by Michigan public school students” (p.
162).
In other research, Hoxby (2001) also found that
schools in metropolitan areas with maximum choice
among districts are 35% more likely to have a curriculum
that fulfills the New Basics criteria in English, math,
science, social studies, and foreign language than schools
in areas with minimum choice (p. 113). Schools with
more choice opportunities for parents are also likely to
place a greater emphasis on discipline, have more highly
structured classrooms, and have principals who are
evaluated in part based on their students’ scores on stan-
dardized tests (ibid).
4.3.2. Private school choice
Private schools in the US enroll approximately 11%
of K-12 students in the US. They consistently achieve
higher graduation rates, attendance rates, levels of par-
 J.L. Bast, H.J. Walberg / Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440
ental satisfaction, and college admission rates than public
schools (Alt & Peter, 2003). These advantages occur
across socioeconomic groupings and are often very large.
For example, students who attend private school are
twice as likely as those who attended public school to
complete a bachelor’s or higher degree by their mid-20s.
Students from low-income families who attend private
school are three times as likely to earn a bachelor’s
degree as their public school counterparts (p. 19).
Early attempts to find a “private school effect” after
controlling for parents’ socioeconomic status met with
only mixed success. However, more recent research finds
positive and statistically significant effects (Chubb &
Moe, 1990; Coleman & Hoffer, 1987; Grogger & Neal,
2000; Neal, 1996; Patrinos & Ariasingam, 1997; Rouse,
2000; Sander, 1995; Witte, 1996). Peterson and Walberg
(2002) recently studied elementary schools in Brooklyn,
Manhattan, and the Bronx. Catholic schools outscored
public schools on reading and math at every grade level.
Both Catholic and public schools achieved less as the
percentage of their enrollments represented by children
in poverty increased, but rising levels of poverty had a
smaller negative effect on learning in Catholic than in
government schools. Remarkably, the Catholic schools
achieved this while spending less than half as much as
their public school counterparts.
4.3.3. Charter school choice
Opponents of school choice dispute whether compari-
sons of public and private schools adequately control for
parent motivation and other differences. During the
1990s, new data became available to better test the
hypothesis. Charter schools—public schools freed from
some government regulation in exchange for having to
compete for students—started in Minnesota in 1991 and
now number approximately 2000 and enroll more than
half a million students. Since these schools do not charge
tuition, admission is usually by lottery, and spending is
limited to public school levels or less, a charter-to-pub-
lic-school comparison should be instructive.
According to Finn, Manno and Vanourek (2001),
“Definitive data on the academic performance of charter
schools are not yet available. Of the data at hand today,
however, much is positive” (p. 31). They cite a US
Department of Education study matching a thousand
charter school students with a thousand similar students
that found significant improvement in reading scores and
a small (not statistically significant) improvement in
math scores. Studies of charter schools in California and
Colorado found evidence of higher test scores, but stud-
ies in Minnesota and Arizona were inconclusive.
Arizona’s charter school program is most notable for
its size (416 schools in 2000–2001) and minimal regulat-
ory requirements. Solmon, Paark and Garcia (2001) com-
pared reading and math scores for charter and public
school students. For reading, they found “students who
437
enrolled in charter schools for two consecutive years
show an additional 2.35–2.44 extra point advantage [on
the Stanford 9 test] over students who stayed in [tra-
ditional public schools] for two consecutive years. Simi-
larly, students in charter schools for three consecutive
years show an additional 1.31 extra point advantage over
students in [traditional public schools] for three consecu-
tive years. Both differences are statistically signifi-
cant….” (p. 23). Charter schools also did slightly better
for math after 2 and 3 years, with the difference in the
third year not statistically significant. These findings con-
tradict earlier research by Mulholland (1999), who had
concluded, “overall, ... charter schools are not per-
forming very differently than other regular public
schools” ( p. 42).
Unfortunately, many states restrict charter school
autonomy, cap the number of charters at very low levels,
provide less per-pupil funding than neighboring public
schools receive, and restrict charters to serving at-risk
students, making charter-to-public school comparisons
difficult to interpret (Hassel, 1998). Finn et al. (2001)
add: “... with all the different testing and assessment
mechanisms now in use, with many districts and states
changing them so often, and with controversies over
which students and schools to compare against, finding
reliable, comparable, clear, and useful data can be a Her-
culean task” (p. 32).
4.3.4. Voucher school choice
Private and public voucher programs in Milwaukee,
Cleveland, Washington, DC, New York City, and else-
where provide yet another set of data with which to test
the hypothesis. Some 50,000 students now attend private
schools with privately financed vouchers (Children First
America, 1999) and another 20,000 use publicly funded
vouchers. In Spring 2000 there were 150 publicly funded
voucher schools nationwide (Finn, Manno, & Vanourek,
2001, p. 22).
Although fewer students participate in voucher pro-
grams than attend charter schools, the random assign-
ment of students gives researchers access to data on the
achievement of voucher recipients as well as students
whose parents applied for vouchers but did not receive
them. According to Greene (2001), “There have been
seven random-assignment and three non-random-assign-
ment studies of school choice programs in the last few
years. The authors of all ten studies find at least some
benefits from the programs and recommend their con-
tinuation if not expansion. No study finds a significant
harm to student achievement from the school choice pro-
grams” (p. 90).
Howell, Wolf, Peterson and Campbell (2001) exam-
ined data from private voucher programs in New York,
Dayton, and Washington, DC. They found “no signifi-
cant differences between the test-score performance of
non-African-American students switching from a public
438 J.L. Bast, H.J. Walberg / Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440
to a private school and the performance of students in
the control group—either after one or two years” (pp.
144–145). However, “African American students who
switched from public to private schools scored, after one
year, 3.3 [National Percentile Ranking] points higher on
the combined math and reading tests and, after two years,
6.3 percentile points higher than the African American
students in the control group. Only the impact in year
two is statistically significant” (p. 145).
A 2001 report by Gill, Timpane, Ross and Brewer
(2001), published by the RAND Corporation, concludes:
“Small-scale, experimental privately funded voucher
programs targeted to low-income students suggest a
possible (but as yet uncertain) modest achievement bene-
fit for African-American students after one to two years
in voucher schools (as compared with local public
schools)” (pp. xiv–xv). The authors also point out vouch-
ers promoted racial integration and charter schools gen-
erally have similar racial-ethnic compositions as local
public schools.
Goldhaber (2001), a scholar at the Urban Institute,
summarizes voucher school research as follows: “The
results of this research also showed that attending a priv-
ate school was beneficial, but only for African American
students. On average African Americans who received
vouchers scored 0.17 standard deviations higher on the
combined test scores than African Americans in the con-
trol group. After two years they scored 0.33 standard
deviations higher than their counterparts in the control
group” (p. 64). If sustained, he says, such gains would
eliminate the usual black–white achievement gap in six
years.
4.3.5. Overview of choice and student achievement
Referring to public and private choice programs gen-
erally, political scientists Teske and Schneider (2001)
conclude: “While not all of these studies conclude that
choice enhances performance, it is significant to note that
the best ones do, and that [we] did not find any study
that documents significantly lower performance in choice
schools. ... Consensus results show that parents are more
satisfied with choice, that they report using academic
preferences to make choices, and that they tend to be
more involved with their child’s education as a conse-
quence of choice” (p. 619).
Greene (2001) finds a “hidden consensus” that charter
and voucher schools produce superior academic results
and higher levels of parental satisfaction. Greene also
found that students in schools of choice express greater
tolerance for political and religious views other than their
own, and had more often engaged in such civic activities
as public speaking and writing letters on political issues.
Voucher schools were also less racially, ethnically, and
socially segregated than public schools.
In separate research, Greene (2002) compared state
average student academic achievement levels with an
“Education Freedom Index” weighted for the amount of
charter school choice, subsidized private school choice,
home schooling choice, and public school choice offered
by each state. Controlling for median household income,
per-pupil spending, and the percentage of ethnic min-
orities in each state, Greene found achievement test
scores and (value-added) score gains on the National
Assessment of Educational Progress to be significantly
and positively associated with the amount of total
weighted choice in the state.
Together, this research shows a positive, if modest,
association between school choice and several measures
of school outcomes, including student achievement, par-
ental satisfaction, and parental involvement. The results
would probably be more dramatic if choice programs to
date were not small, located in the nation’s poorest com-
munities, underfunded, and heavily burdened by regu-
lation (Peterson, 2003, p. 14). Hoxby (2002) points out
that the positive impact of school choice on student
achievement may also be obscured by the fact that public
schools “respond to competition from choice schools by
raising their pupils’ achievement or raising another pupil
outcome valued by parents” (p. 142). That test scores
for students from low-income families appear to increase
more than scores for students from better-off families
contradicts predictions that poor parents would be parti-
cularly handicapped by information asymmetry or other
problems when choosing schools.
5. Summary and conclusion
The notion that parents would do a better job choosing
the schools for their children than experts in government
agencies is well grounded in economic theory. Parents
have the right incentives and access to the information
needed to make correct choices. Allowing schools to
compete gives parents the opportunity to discover the
best schools for their children. Government agencies in
the education arena, on the other hand, are burdened by
conflicts of interest, control by special interest groups,
and a tendency to adopt one-size-fits-all remedies to
complex problems that require greater variation and spe-
cialization.
Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis. Parents
and government experts tend to rank schools the same
way, indicating parents are well informed. Parents put
academic achievement at the top of their list of concerns
when choosing a school, meaning they presumably are
acting in their children’s long-term best interests.
Schools of choice tend to out-perform public schools on
a wide range of outcomes and for children from all soci-
oeconomic backgrounds, meaning the act of choosing,
for whatever reason, leads to children attending better
schools. To the extent that confounding factors and the
small scale of current voucher experiments bias the
 J.L. Bast, H.J. Walberg / Economics of Education Review 23 (2004) 431–440
results, it would be in the direction of minimizing rather
than exaggerating the positive effects of choice.
Lewis Solmon’s finding that parents who choose Ari-
zona charter schools are just as well informed about their
choices as government experts, then, is collaborated by
economic theory and empirical research. Whether this is
enough to persuade voucher critics is uncertain. As
Traub (2002) writes, “in the world of education, a great
deal of moral power attaches to practices that are aesthet-
ically appealing; but justice is very often better served
by the merely effective” (p. 50).
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