"whether students in private schools, using publicly funded vouchers or paying tuition, perform better than their peers in public schools."

Essay by cutie20College, UndergraduateC+, December 2004

download word file, 2 pages 5.0

Critics of school choice agree that skimming, offering public school students vouchers to attend private schools, removes the pubic systems highest achieving students and most involved parents. This practice also reduces the amount of state financial support given to public school districts. In response to competition, school choice supporters argue that public school officials will seek more qualified teachers, develop a more challenging curriculum, and develop a more aggressive work ethic. In this research, Caroline Minster Hoxby questions "whether students in private schools, using publicly funded vouchers or paying tuition, perform better than their peers in public schools." Before answering her question, Hoxby conducts a pre-study examining the choice of school districts and between public and private schools. The study reveals an increase in student performance and lower educational coasts in metropolitan areas having many school districts as compared to metropolitan areas having few or no school districts. In discussing school districts and private schools, Hoxby notes the connection between religion and the establishment of schools. Studies show that private schools are likely to exist in communities where a common religion has survived for a period of time. In areas where religion is less of a factor, private school costs tend to be unaffordable. Regardless if public or private, Hoxby claims that all schools respond to competition positively.

To support this claim, she studies the effects of competition in areas where public and private schools have engaged in competition for a period of time. The Milwaukee voucher program and Arizona and Michigan charter school system serves as the basis for this research. Hoxby also focused on similar criterion for all areas, evaluating the performance of fourth graders. Like Hoxby, I agree that private school competition evoke a positive response among public schools. In Milwaukee, schools subject to...