What Sort of School Choice Market Do We Want?

I have a sort of mania for clarity in public debates, which is a useful obsession for working in education policy. American education arguments are frequently fought on grounds that have little to do with substance, and a lot to do with ideology. That’s part of why most of our debates over charter schools are so unproductive.

In keeping with my obsession, then, I published a piece today at Cato Unbound on how we could think more clearly about school choice and educational markets. Here’s a sample:

[T]o an important degree, we already have a market in American education. The problem is that it’s an awkward, unacknowledged market. We pretend as though neighborhood public schools are public goods provided to all American children as a part of their citizenship. As a matter of supply, this is (mostly) true. But, as is relatively obvious, the contours of that public good vary considerably according to local real estate markets. Parents who can afford the right mortgages can essentially purchase a higher-quality PreK–12 education for their children…Instead of asking whether we are willing to move education from “the public domain” to a system of “private provision,” we ought to focus on [another question]: what sort of an education market do we really want?

Click here to read the rest