School Choice Improves Public School Performance

There’s an argument going around that deserves a response: The Parents’ Campaign has repeatedly claimed that Mississippi is gaining academically while the “top choice states” plummeted. This is naive, lacking any academic rigor, and a dishonest interpretation of the data. 

 First, the phrase “top choice states” is misleading. Half the states in their top 10 only recently enacted their school choice programs, and the states with the largest enrollment in school choice programs have grown dramatically only in the last 2-3 years. The Parents’ Campaign has cherry-picked the data in an attempt to match their narrative.   

Declining NAEP scores are not unique to school choice states. In fact, during the 2013-2024 period there is only one state in the nation that did not see a decline in 4th grade reading NAEP scores, and that state is Mississippi. All other states saw declines, which has a great deal to do with the pandemic. Three of the states often cited (Arizona, Indiana, and Ohio) had declines smaller than the national average (7 points) and four others were right at the national average. Another state often cited, Vermont, is simply not a “top choice state” as it has a tiny voucher program only for high school students in towns without a high school. 

It’s also worth noting that Mississippi already has some school choice. We have a charter school program, an education scholarship account (ESA) program for students with special needs, and two small voucher programs for students with dyslexia and speech-language impediments. Who is to say that our gains in NAEP scores aren’t attributed, at least in part, to that? And is it possible that school choice helped prevent some of these states from seeing more pronounced COVID declines? Certainly.  

The Parents’ Campaign also conveniently excluded states like Alabama and Louisiana from their graphic, who not only have choice but also have NAEP gains over the last 10 years.  

But here’s the key point: If you want to know what happens to public schools’ academic quality when a choice program is implemented, there are many academic studies that tackle that question in a much more rigorous way. For example: 

1. In the Journal of Economic Literature, Epple, Romano, and Urquiola found that “evidence on both small-scale and large-scale programs suggests that competition induced by vouchers leads public schools to improve.”  
2. In the Peabody Journal of Education, Egalite and Wolf found that private school choice provides small but significant benefits to students who remain in public schools. 
3. In the Journal of School Choice, Wolf, Green, Paul, and Ladner found “more education freedom is significantly associated with increased NAEP scores and gains, supporting the claim that choice and competition improves system-wide achievement.”  

The preponderance of academic literature directly contradicts The Parents’ Campaign’s assertion that school choice causes public school performance to decline. Nearly 30 different studies show just the opposite: private school choice has positive effects on the test scores of students who remain in public schools.   

Speaking of NAEP scores, it should be noted that despite our remarkable gains, we still have 2/3 of 4th graders and 3/4 of 8th graders in Mississippi’s public school system who aren’t reading at grade level. Perhaps more alarming, more than 1/3 of both 4th and 8th graders scored below basic, failing to perform at even the minimum NAEP standards and indicating a likely need for direct intervention.  

The Mississippi Miracle is real and should be celebrated, but we have to be clear-eyed about the work ahead of us. We have much more to do to continue the Miracle and ensure every child is prepared for life.  

Most importantly, though, education freedom is about so much more than NAEP scores. The number one reason parents change schools has nothing to do with average test scores, it is excessive stress, anxiety, or bullying. 

I want choice in education because I know children are unique, that parents have the primary responsibility to guide their education, and that education is too personal to be centrally managed from the top-down  

When Mississippi fully implements school choice (coming soon!) we are going to get academic gains, both in the students who choose and the students who are *air quotes* left behind, but the number one reason to give families school choice is to help students find a setting that sets them up to flourish.