https://www.discoursemagazine.com/culture-and-society/2021/05/03/why-school-vouchers-matter-and-how-to-get-them-right/
After a year of missed schooling and inadequate online learning, after months of teachers unions delaying the return to classrooms, it is time to reconsider school vouchers. Many “red” states are already doing so. Indiana is the most recent, and Florida, with one of the largest programs in the country, is about to undertake a major expansion. As these programs are implemented, we should learn which policies work best and build on those lessons.
The pro-voucher debate so far has focused on two features shared by all voucher programs. They offer more choices to parents and kids. And the schools supported by them appear to perform a bit better, on average, than existing public schools (after taking into account differences in student populations).
We need to refocus the debate on two other points that are crucial to designing effective programs. One is whether the payments are actually large enough to benefit poor families. Vouchers are useless to the poor unless they cover nearly all the costs of tuition, books and transportation. (The federal government already covers food costs.) The other issue is whether the programs foster genuine market competition, forcing schools to do their best for students or pay a high price for failure.
Well-designed voucher programs should accomplish the following:
Encourage new schools to enter the market,
Drive out schools that don’t meet students’ and parents’ needs, and
Shift public resources swiftly and decisively toward the best schools and away from the worst, as determined by the parents themselves.
These goals can be achieved only if resources follow the students, not the schools, teachers or administrators. They happen only if voucher programs are large enough and if bad public schools aren’t kept on life support. Right now, we don’t have that kind of vigorous competition, and it shows. Our children suffer for it.