General Articles: School Choice Fosters Academic Achievement
States with the most liberal education policies -- liberal in terms of allowing options such as homeschooling and vouchers -- are producing students who are outperforming their peers.
States that provide the greatest amount of educational freedom increase the academic-achievement levels of their students, according to a new study by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
The report, called the Education Freedom Index, ranks states on their openness in five policy categories: charter schools, vouchers, homeschooling, the ease with which families can choose a different public-school district if they want to relocate and ease with which they can pick a new school district without changing their residence. In states that opened the doors to school-choice options, students on average outperformed their peers on the SAT and the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) exams, according to Manhattan Institute senior fellow Jay P. Greene, who conducted the study.
The nation's freest states, as far as education is concerned, are Arizona, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Oregon, with Texas picking up the No. 6 slot. States at the bottom of the index included Virginia, Rhode Island, Maryland, Kentucky, Nevada and West Virginia. Hawaii, which has no charter schools, no voucher programs and only one school district, finished last.
Greene, a former government professor who has studied the effect of school choice on civic values and integration, illustrated his findings by comparing South Carolina and Texas, which differ in the educational options they provide families. Both states have similar median household incomes and both educate a high percentage of minorities. Both also have per-pupil spending rates and student-teacher ratios that fall below the national average.
But Texas, with a freedom-index score of 2.48, outperforms South Carolina, with a lower index score of 1.64, on tests, according to the study. In Texas, 24 percent of students post proficient NAEP scores, compared with 17.7 percent of students in South Carolina. Average verbal and math SAT scores in Texas are 494 and 501, while South Carolina students scored 479 on the verbal section and 474 in math.
Policymakers and educators should take note of the research because small changes in state procedures could make a big difference in student learning, says Greene. A state that changes its policies and raises its freedom-index score by one point, for example, could expect an additional 5.5 percent of its students to test in the proficient range on the NAEP exams. A one-point index rise also would lead to a 21-point verbal-score increase on the SAT and a 22-point increase in math, adds Greene, who used a simple regression model to produce his conclusions.________________________________________________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, author, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of almost 3 decades reside with their 8 children in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. because "our current system of education has broken its promise..." Learning By Grace, Inc. delivers Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children in the United States and throughout the world.
Rothschild has authored a number of books about education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Daily Education News Blog contains feature stories on alternatives in education.