Market Research:
A Quick Guide to Scholarly Literature on School Choice
By Andrew J. Coulson
During a recent round of visits with print journalists, a newspaper editor told me that she receives between five and ten times as many press releases attacking school choice as she receives in support of it. As a corrective to that lopsided public relations onslaught, she asked if the claims made on behalf of school choice were backed up by solid research, and if so, where that research might be found.
In reality, the vast majority of sound empirical studies comparing competitive education markets to state-run school monopolies give the edge to markets. A few find no significant differences, and only the tiniest percentage find any sort of advantage to government operated schools. Moreover, the superiority of free market education is not limited to higher student achievement, but extends to a variety of positive social effects as well.
What follows is a short list of studies introducing that empirical literature. Since the purpose of this comparison is illustrate differences between traditional state-run schooling and markets of competing private schools, public school choice programs and public charter schools are considered incidentally or not at all. Wherever possible, research summaries are cited so as to make the most efficient use of the reader’s time. The material is organized by topic, and links are provided for studies (or summaries thereof) available on the Internet. The topics covered are:
- Relative academic performance of market vs. monopoly schooling
- Racial achievement differences in government and independent schools
- Graduation rates in independent vs. government schools
- Integration in government and private schools
- Other Social Effects of Market vs. Monopoly Schooling
Market vs. Monopoly Schooling
Though America’s school choice debate usually revolves around a few domestic studies of small, relatively young education voucher programs, that narrowness of focus is unnecessary. In addition to the limited U.S. experiences, competitive education markets exist in other nations on a much larger scale. Furthermore, a wide variety of both market-like and monopolistic education systems have been implemented over the long, worldwide history of formal schooling. The following studies collect and summarize a good cross section of that domestic, international, and historical evidence.
The Domestic Evidence: