What is School Choice?

School choice allows students to attend any public or private school they wish within a district. This is done by providing children who do not want to attend public schools with vouchers, tax credits and scholarships in order for them to pay for non public schools. The purpose of school choice is to make schools more completive and therefore potentially better.

School choice has its supporters, but it is greatly opposed in many areas.

People for school choice feel healthy competition can only improve schools. By being able to choose the school their child attends, parent have a degree of choice in choosing what their children are taught. In short, they feel that children should not be forced to attend failing schools.

People for school choice are also advocating for better education for the impoverished. By giving parents a stipend of some sort to educate their children these families are given better access to good educational choices.

People against school choice feel impoverished parents are not capable of making informed decisions on their own. They feel that school vouchers will cause parents to automatically flee from local public schools instead of weighing options.

People against school choice feel that some children, whose parents could not arrange transportation to other schools would be stuck in schools with no resources because all of the best kids and financial resources will be gone.

What localities have school vouchers?