Tax-credit scholarships (TCS) are among the fastest growing education choice programs. These programs incentivize individuals and businesses to donate to nonprofit organizations that provide tuition scholarships to eligible students. In exchange for their donations, donors receive a tax credit from the state--ideally a 100 percent,…

Opponents of educational choice recycle the same false prophesies of doom without regard to the evidence or the size and scope of the proposals. Part I of this report assesses the validity of choice opponents' predictions that choice policies will lead to significant losses of district school funding and declining academic performance. Part II of…

Private school choice options are being proposed and adopted in numerous states across the country. As of the spring of 2019, 62 private school choice programs were in operation in 29 states and the District of Columbia, serving more than 400,000 children. Although growth in private school choice programs and enrollment has been considerable over…

In the past few years, four states have established programs that provide public financial support to students who choose to attend a private school. These programs--a tax-credit-funded scholarship initiative in Florida and voucher programs in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio--offer a glimpse of what expansive statewide choice might look like. What…

Educational choice programs--defined broadly as programs that provide parents with financial aid to help their children opt out of the traditional public school system--are a hallmark of meaningful educational reform. Yet despite widespread news coverage of such programs, polls show most Americans are unfamiliar with how educational choice…

Private school choice programs are frequently mired in political and legal controversy. Two primary factors fuel this controversy. First, these programs trace their roots to the 1960s in the height of school desegregation. Tuition-grant laws came forth across the South during this period, enabling White families to access public funds to pay…

Educational choice programs--defined broadly as programs that provide parents with financial aid to help their children opt out of the traditional public school system--are a hallmark of meaningful educational reform. Yet despite widespread news coverage of such programs, polls show most Americans are unfamiliar with how educational choice…

Educational choice programs--defined broadly as programs that provide parents financial aid to opt their children out of the traditional public school system--have been a topic of significant public discussion and debate in recent months. Despite the increasing news coverage, however, polls show that most Americans are unfamiliar with educational…

Given the significant growth rate and geographic expansion of private school choice programs over the past two decades, it is important to examine how traditional public schools respond to the sudden injection of competition for students and resources. This article uses: (1) a school fixed effects approach; and (2) a regression discontinuity…

The purpose of the "Colorado K-12 & School Choice Survey" is to measure public opinion on, and in some cases awareness or knowledge of, a range of K-12 education topics and school choice reforms. A total of 601 telephone interviews were completed from August 29 to September 16, 2015, with questions on the direction of K-12 education,…

Creating smart, coherent education policy is painstaking work; there are technical, budgetary, and political challenges at almost every turn. But it is some of the most important work that state leaders can undertake. As Ohioans prepared to elect a new governor in late 2018, we at the Fordham Institute began rolling out a set of policy proposals…

School choice options--including both voucher and neo-voucher options like tuition tax credit funded scholarship programs--have become increasingly prevalent in recent years (Howell, Peterson, Wolf and Campbell, 2006). One popular argument for school choice policies, drawing from economic theory, is that public schools will improve the education…

This report collects the results of all available empirical studies using the best available scientific methods to measure how school vouchers affect academic outcomes for participants, and all available studies on how vouchers affect outcomes in public schools. Contrary to the widespread claim that vouchers do not benefit participants and hurt…

Few people realize the movement's breadth and the forms in which school choice expansion is manifest. Out of slightly more than 57 million K-12 schoolchildren, almost 29.4 million--nearly 52%--are enrolled in a K-12 school choice option. This article provides an overview of the scope of school choice today and summarizes the political, policy, and…

The Washington, D.C. school system has a long history of poor academic achievement; however, over the past decade, the District of Columbia has made strides in offering families greater choice about which schools their children attend, thanks to a strong charter school law and the federally funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. District…