Poor African-Americans and Hispanics in Chicago have the most to gain from school choice. Although there are a few excellent public schools in Chicago, the quality of public education is low relative to the quality of private education. For example, only two high schools in the Chicago public school system are ranked in the top 100 high schools in the Chicago metropolitan area based upon their ACT scores. Eleven Catholic high schools in Chicago are ranked in the top 100.
For this reason, 60 percent of Chicagoans favor letting parents send their children to the school of their choice. Over 70 percent of blacks in Chicago favor school choice. Others probably have less to gain from school choice and, perhaps, something to lose.
For example, the quality of public education in many suburban areas is quite high. Although private schools also do a good job in the suburbs, they are generally not superior to public schools. Further, school choice is irrelevant to sparsely populated rural areas. For these reasons, voucher bills cannot win statewide. As a recent case in point, a large majority of California voters rejected a voucher bill last month.
The effect of private schooling on academic achievement is also a point of controversy. In a recent study, Anthony Krautmann and I examined the effect of attending a Catholic high school on dropout rates and test scores, taking into account the select nature of the Catholic school population. We found that Catholic schooling reduced the odds that sophomores did not graduate with their class by 10 percentage points. Further, we found that Catholic schools had a significant positive effect on the test scores of African-Americans and Hispanics. Catholic schools did not increase the test scores of others.
The Catholic school effect on the dropout rate is particularly noteworthy because many inner-city high schools have very high rates. For example, the rate in Chicago is about 50 percent. Since high school dropout rates are associated with low earnings, welfare dependency, crime and many other social problems, strategies to reduce it are essential. Our study suggests that the Catholic school experience is very relevant.
Vouchers would allow more parents to select a Catholic education for their children. In big cities like Chicago, vouchers would allow many poor families to escape poor public schools.
Vouchers might be more palatable to voters if they did not result in a short-run drain on public school resources. Many public schools are already short on funds. If money is simply reallocated to private schools from public schools, the quality of public schooling could decline even more. Although schoolyard perestroika might be good for the public school sector in the long run, there needs to be careful planning on how to make it to the long run without too much disruption.
