Government programs accomplish nothing unless and until they are implemented. How they are designed and administered influences how beneficial they are to families.

Frederick Hess acknowledges the important roles of policy design and implementation in his compelling essay “Opening Doors for School Choice.” He states, “practicality matters,” as programs should be designed to appeal to the widest possible range of families. He says, “Empowering parents requires information as well as choice.” Indeed, it does.

In my nearly 25 years of evaluating school choice programs, I have learned a few things about how to design and implement parental choice initiatives. I share those insights here.

Private school choice programs vary regarding who is eligible, what can be bought, and what regulations providers face. Private school choice initiatives generally have evolved from narrowly-targeted tuition voucher programs to broadly available and flexible Education Savings Account (ESA) initiatives. The types and levels of regulations placed on providers have ebbed and flowed based on national political tides and the political context of states. States that have been deliberate in implementing new choice programs have experienced more success than states that have rushed program implementation.

A Little History 

Early choice programs were narrowly targeted to student populations that faced logistical, social, or educational problems. Vermont and Maine had a problem. In the 1860s and 70s, those states contained many rural towns without enough students to populate the large, comprehensive junior high and high schools that were then all the rage in public education. Most of those communities did have small private elementary and secondary schools. Vermont in 1869, and Maine in 1873, established “town-tuitioning” programs whereby the state gave a voucher to families in rural areas to cover the cost of their child’s tuition at a private school of choice. The first school voucher programs were launched in the United States over a century ago in rural areas. Both programs continue to operate today.

In the early 1990s, Milwaukee and Cleveland had a problem. The residentially-assigned public schools in those post-industrial cities concentrated low-income students in schools that seemed powerless to address the children’s many needs. African American leaders partnered with Republican governors to create the first modern school voucher programs targeted to inner-city students who qualified for the Federal Lunch Program (FLP). The Milwaukee program now serves nearly 30,000 students with family incomes up to 62% above the ceiling for the FLP. Wisconsin hosts three other school voucher programs. The Cleveland program no longer has any income cap. Ohio is home to four other school voucher programs. As of the 2022–23 school year, 27 school voucher programs operate in 18 US states.

In the mid-1990s, Arizona had a problem. Students with disabilities were struggling to make progress in their schools and parents were demanding more options. Initially, the Grand Canyon State enacted a school voucher program for students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). That initiative ran afoul of the state’s constitution since it involved payments to private schools from a government appropriation. Policymakers responded by enacting a similar program in 1999 funded indirectly, via tax credits. The first tax-credit scholarship program was born. Currently, 26 such programs operate in 20 states.

Arizona continued to have a problem. The tax-credit scholarships it provided to students with IEPs were limited to covering private school tuition. Many students with disabilities require more than just private schooling options to address their special needs. Dan Lips of the Heritage Foundation recommended that Arizona policymakers apply the design of flexible spending accounts for medical and child care expenses to their private school choice program. Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) were born. Nine states operated ESA programs this year with five new ESA initiatives enacted by states this legislative session and more likely to come.

Coming out of the Covid pandemic, our country’s children have a problem. Thus, it is unsurprising that most US states are looking to school choice enactments or expansions as a partial solution.

Design Matters

Policymakers have many choices regarding how to structure private school choice programs. Choice initiatives narrowly targeted to low-income students have a solid track record of improving academic outcomes for participants. Targeted choice programs also tend to be treated as political footballs due in part to the limited political influence of the constituency they serve. More recent statewide school choice programs with broad eligibility have passed with stronger political support than most targeted programs have mustered. Expansive choice programs have demonstrated clear positive competitive effects on the test scores of students who remain in public schools, especially if the students are low-income. The participant effects reported by several recent evaluations of statewide choice programs, however, have been null or negative. Broad eligibility in choice programs appears to bring greater political sustainability and positive competitive effects but at the cost of lower test scores for participating students in some cases.

The structure of private school choice programs also matters. Government-funded voucher and tax-credit-funded scholarship programs yield traditional “school” choice. They assist parents in selecting a private school as a single alternative education provider for their child. Thus, voucher and scholarship programs are dependent upon the existing set of private schools, at least initially. ESA programs, in contrast, allow parents to allocate resources among a variety of education providers to fully customize their child’s education. ESAs represent “education” choice. They can support micro-schooling, hybrid homeschooling, as well as traditional homeschooling and private schooling. Given the versatility of ESAs, they have understandably become the most popular form of school choice among parents and policymakers.

Regulations affect the size, strength, and diversity of the set of private schools willing to participate in school choice programs. In a series of survey experiments, several colleagues and I established that three regulations clearly deter quality providers from participating in choice programs: Open admissions, prohibiting additional charges to parents, and state accountability testing. Private schools want to be confident that new student enrollees are prepared to be successful in their new school of choice. Thus, some schools decline to participate in choice programs that bar them from applying their normal admissions standards to choice students. Prohibiting schools from charging parents more than the voucher amount (i.e. no “top-ups”) sets a fixed price for the education students receive via a choice program. Rigid price controls scare away many higher-quality providers, reduce the diversity of private school providers, and deny parents the option of paying up for a better product. 

Tests drive curricula. Most private schools employ curricula that depart from the state curricular standards mandated for public schools. If a private school must administer the state test to all choice students, its leaders feel stuck between having to change their curriculum to match the public school test or inflicting a test on their students that is mismatched to the content they have been taught. That is why public school test mandates are a non-starter for many private schools. In contrast, most private schools are happy to administer a standardized test of their choosing. Regulate with care lest the quality private providers you scare.

Key Considerations for Implementation

School choice programs are not self-executing. Thomas Stewart and I, in our book The School Choice Journey, used interviews and focus groups to document how 100 families experienced the implementation of the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program, a means-tested school voucher program launched in 2004. We established that implementing organizations need to inform parents of the availability of the program, determine student eligibility, recruit a robust set of participating providers, and support families through the process of selecting an alternative to their local public school.

Our study uncovered several implementation best practices. Implementers should work with local community leaders, especially pastors, to spread the word about the program. They should contract out eligibility determination to an experienced organization, if possible. They should recruit a large and diverse set of religious and secular schools to accept choice students. They should enlist an independent non-profit, such as Great Schools, to provide objective, verified provider information to parents. Their staff should coach parents through the school choice process with a light touch, avoiding steering them to specific favored schools. Critically, implementation should emphasize to parents the importance of visiting multiple schools before choosing one for their child. There is no substitute for comparison shopping by putting one’s own eyes on the real-time operations of a variety of schools.

ESA programs have two general options to enable parents to allocate their education funds. The Arizona model is to load the funds onto an “education debit card” that parents use to purchase school tuition or other education products and services. The West Virginia model is to set up a webpage, consisting of a virtual marketplace, where parents can select only from pre-approved vendors, much like the insurance marketplaces established in the wake of the Affordable Care Act. The Arizona debit card has the benefit of convenience, as parents are allowed to make the purchases they view as appropriate while government officials audit their accounts after the fact to ensure that all the purchases are permissible. The West Virginia educational choice marketplace has the vital benefit of ex ante accountability: Every vendor and service on the site has been pre-vetted for eligibility. The West Virginia model for ESA implementation provides greater government control but in a way that does not infringe upon the choices of parents.

Frederick Hess is right to stress that what school choice is and does hinges greatly on policy design and implementation. Some policy design calls are easy. Policymakers should prefer ESAs to vouchers or scholarships and permit private schools to choose the test they administer to choice students. Other design choices are difficult. Targeted programs are more efficient and consistent with equity concerns. Universal programs are more politically resilient and satisfy equality goals. The political situation in individual states will determine which design wins out. Finally, program implementation needs adequate time and attention. Implementation staff should be thoroughly trained in how best to support parents in making their educational choices. After all, it is parental school choice.