The "Maine K-12 & School Choice Survey" project, commissioned by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice and conducted by Braun Research, Inc. (BRI), measures Maine registered voters' familiarity and views on a range of K-12 education topics and school choice reforms. The author and his colleagues report response levels and…

School choice is a common sense idea that gives all parents the power and freedom to choose their child's education, while encouraging healthy competition among schools and other institutions to better serve students' needs and priorities. It is a public policy that allows a parent/guardian or student to choose a district, charter, or private…

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…

Opponents of school choice argue that private schools are not "accountable" because they are not subject to detailed oversight by a regulatory bureaucracy. They claim private school employees can be expected to engage in abusive and criminal behavior more frequently. School choice supporters respond that parents hold private schools…

Since 1873, Maine has financed the private school education of thousands of K-12 students. This lets parents in towns without traditional public schools choose from a list of approved private and public schools, enroll their children, and have the town pay the tuition up to an authorized amount. The town receives full or partial reimbursement from…

The research needs for a cross-national study of public versus private school choice in Maine and Atlantic Canada are described in this paper. In the United States, the use of public funds to support private schools has historically been constrained by the separation of church and state doctrine and by the ideology of the public school as a common…

In 43 rural Maine communities that pay tuition to send their students to high schools in larger towns, achievement test scores appeared to influence parental school choice but explained only 20% of the variability in enrollment trends. Enrollment trends were not related to school socioeconomic status or expenditure per pupil. Contains 40…