Research says: School choice options cheaper than trad. education
Policy advocacy org the Independent Women’s Voice explains why local school choice initiatives are financially smart for taxpayers: On average, students in such programs require $5,000/yr from the gov’t, in contrast with traditional public schools’ $14,000. Allowing families to customize their kids’ schooling in states like CA wouldn’t “drain money from public education,” the IWV says.
MISPERCEPTION #2: School choice programs drain money from public education.
FACTS:
Private school choice programs provide public funding to educate a child, and therefore are an important component of “public education.” These programs save state and local governments and taxpayers millions of dollars annually.
When a student attends a private school using a state-funded scholarship or education savings account (ESA), the government typically no longer pays the child’s government-assigned school to educate that student. The cost to educate a child in a traditional public school almost always exceeds the public funding provided for each child’s school choice scholarship.
In fact, an analysis of 40 educational choice programs serving students in FY 2018 found that the school choice programs cost an average of $5,000 per student, compared to the $14,000 average per-student expenditure for students attending public K-12 schools. Funding for the traditional public school system has skyrocketed on an inflation-adjusted basis in the 30 years since the first school choice program was created.
This article originally appeared in the Independent Women’s Voice. Read the whole thing here.
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