All families deserve the opportunity to choose the education that works best for their children. But there’s lots of myth and misrepresentation when it comes to education options.
Many myths in the school choice debate crumble under the slightest bit of scrutiny. Here are three popular ones:
MYTH: School choice siphons money away from public schools.
FACT: School choice returns money to the hands of students and their families. Families still have the option to take those dollars back to the same district-run public school if they want. If the public schools meet the needs of families, then that money will stay within that system.
MYTH: School choice harms the children left behind in public schools.
FACT: School choice competition incentivizes public schools to improve. A large body of evidence suggests competitive pressures from private school choice leads to improvements in outcomes for children who remain in the public school system.
As a result of competitive pressures, students do not even have to participate in school choice programs to benefit from them.
MYTH: School choice leads to inequities.
FACT: Trapping disadvantaged students in public schools that have been failing them exacerbates inequities. Advantaged families already have school choice because they are more likely to have the resources to pay for private education out of pocket or to purchase a residence that happens to be assigned to the best district-run public school in the area. Public schools are able to discriminate on the basis of ZIP code.
Want to learn more about the facts behind education options? Read our latest study, Funding Students Instead of Institutions and learn Six Ways Education Options Benefit Georgia’s Children.