Expansion helps both low-income, wealthy kids
Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher plan will indeed benefit wealthy families. This is because all families with children stand to benefit. But school choice will especially benefit low-income families disadvantaged by the current system. Those opposing proven educational reforms in pursuit of misguided class warfare compromise educational quality for all children in Tennessee, especially the disadvantaged.
There is substantial evidence that school choice will benefit all Tennesseans, especially low-income families.
It is easy to cherry-pick studies on school choice that either fail to account for the fact that parents of underperforming students are the most likely to exercise that choice or studies that focus narrowly on the short-term effects where there is an initial social disruption to the child, a delay due to the time it takes to build and open new schools, and a process of learning through experimentation.
Summarizing the systematic evidence, however, Alexander W. Salter concludes, “On the whole, the evidence is clear: school choice delivers for families seeking the best education money can buy.”
Expanded education competition benefits Tennesseans
Gov. Lee’s plan is specifically designed to prioritize low-income families. Our current system disadvantages the children of low-income families because they do not have the means to afford homes in good school districts or pay private school tuition.
Under the proposed program, lowincome families stand to receive educational vouchers that will exceed what they pay in taxes, enabling them to pursue better educational options. Since well-to-do families often pay higher home prices to live in districts with high-quality public schools, it would not be surprising if many of these families maintained their public school enrollment under the plan.
Expanded competition in education will benefit all Tennesseans. This is because educational competition through school choice will align the incentives of educational providers toward educational achievement, as observed and monitored by parents.
This is important because parents have the strongest vested interest in their children and are best equipped to judge their educational needs and outcomes.
Having the right to pursue alternative educational options, even if only exercised by a small fraction of Tennesseans, can be expected to improve results across the board. Only public schools that fail to reform poor performance will risk defunding.
Current constraints fail to give public school teachers proper incentives
Competition can also be expected to foster innovation and diversify educational approaches. Public schools in Tennessee are a monopoly to all but the well-to-do. And, as Terry Moe’s Brookings Institute book, “Special Interest: Teacher Unions and America’s Public Schools,” demonstrates, it is a monopoly controlled mainly by teacher unions who often block educational reform.
School boards do have elections, but beholden to the preferences of the majority of voters, teachers’ unions, and federal mandates, they are often forced to maintain a one-size-fits-all approach to education that leaves little room for experimentation or customization.
While we have many passionate and high-quality teachers in public schools across Tennessee, the current system constrains them and fails to provide proper incentives. This is why the evidence in Tennessee and beyond is that more funding for education does not improve educational outcomes.
Despite billions in annual funding, many Tennessean children fall through the cracks of our current system. With school choice, education entrepreneurs will be incentivized to fill these market niches and discover educational methods to serve populations currently underserved by the public school system.
K-12 education policy should aim to educate Tennessee children, not to pursue misguided partisan agendas. Politicians putting misplaced concerns for class warfare above positive educational reform demonstrate why parents, not politicians or bureaucrats, should control the education of their children.
Daniel J. Smith is a professor of economics and director of the Political Economy Research Institute at Middle Tennessee State University.