Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is school choice?

A:School choice moves parents back to their traditional role—in charge of their children’s education. It means ownership and personal responsibility. School choice will restore parents’ rights to be the primary decision-makers in their children’s education. Why empower parents? Because it’s parents, not bureaucrats or the educational establishment, who know what’s best for their children.

Q: Why do we need school choice?

A: Parents have a fundamental right to choose the best schools for their children. The most important goal in public policy is to assist all students access to a first-rate education. School choice raises both student achievement and parental satisfaction. Study after study, economists have found that merely spending more money on traditional government-run public schools does not improve education.

Additionally, private education usually costs between one quarter and one half of public education while giving superior outcomes, according to a study by Doug Moe in conjunction with the Cato Institute. Public policy researchers John Chubb and Eric Hanushek have powerfully argued in multiple reports that further resources devoted to the problem without structural reform will simply make the nation’s schools more expensive, not better. With school choice, parents would choose the better schools and the under-performing schools would have to improve or suffer the consequence of losing public funding. School choice is the best way to improve public education at low cost by forcing schools to perform more efficiently.

Q: What is a tax credit?

A:Individual and corporate tax credits can be used as deductions from federal income taxes so long as the money that would be going to income taxes is redirected to a school of choice. Corporate tax credit programs allow corporations to take a partial tax credit for their donation to an organization providing scholarship grants for students.

Q: What is Universal Tuition Tax Credits?

A: Universal Tuition Tax Credits, called UTTC for short, is a system via which parents pay the schools and the school tuition is deducted from the state income taxes of the parents making the payment. The result is that students that normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to attend a school other than the one located within their district have that opportunity after a UTTC-based system is installed. UTTC, unlike school vouchers, would not allow state funds to support religious schools, drain any funding from public schools, or spawn new entitlements in private schools.

Instead, Universal Tuition Tax Credits will take less than 10% of students in public schools and aid them in migration to private or home schools—the schools that they or their parents want them to attend. This system saves the state and local governments’ large sums of money while also providing a quality education to students in a setting of their choice. Students and parents alike are thereby empowered to take a proactive role in the education process. It isn’t only the UTTC recipients and their families who benefit, however. Public school students benefit, too, via smaller class sizes, higher per pupil spending, and increased teacher competition.

Parents of UTTC enrollees would receive a dollar-for-dollar reduction in state income tax liability for every dollar spent on tuition. Money from the tax credit could simply be claimed against state tax liability. Deductions could include books, supplies, computers, tutors, tuition, and transportation.

In the end, parents and students—public, private, and alternative alike—win with a UTTC system. When school choice is made more accessible to parents and students, the quality of education, the ability to take personal responsibility, and the availability of quality schools for all social classes climbs dramatically.

Q: What is a voucher?

A: In a school voucher system, all designated students would receive vouchers for a specified amount of money good at any school—public, private, or alternative. The school admitting the student would then redeem the voucher for payment. Depending upon the amount of the voucher, the students’ tuition bill would be partially or fully paid by the local or state government.

Universal vouchers would allow all parents to direct funds set aside for education by the government to send their children to a school of choice, whether that school is public, private or religious separates the government financing of education from the government operation of schools. Means-tested vouchers enable income-eligible families, usually in limited numbers, to direct funds set aside for education by the government to pay for tuition at the public, private or religious school of their choice.

Q: What are the different types of schools?

A: Charter Schools

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are granted a high degree of autonomy from existing rules and regulations. Depending upon state law, teachers, parents, or other would-be educators can apply for permission to open a school. The “charter” may be granted by, for example, the local school board, the state board of education, or a public institution of higher education, depending upon the state. Some states also allow existing public or nonsectarian private schools to convert to charter status. Charter schools have the potential to control their own budget, staffing and curriculum, but their autonomy varies from state to state. They must attract students and achieve the results agreed to in their charters, or their contracts can be revoked.

Nearly 3,000 new schools have been launched since state legislatures began passing charter legislation in the 1990s. Chartering is at the center of a growing movement to challenge traditional notions of what quality public education means. Charter schools are best classified as public schools of choice—teachers and students choose them. The schools operate with freedom from the many regulations that traditional public schools are bombarded with. They generally offer teachers and students more authority to make decisions than most traditional public schools. Instead of being accountable for compliance with rules and regulations, they are accountable for academic results and for upholding their charter.

Home Schools

Each fall when school begins, a growing number of school-aged children do not head off to a classroom. Instead, they learn at home with their families or with other children in their communities. Homeschooling takes many forms, from a daily routine following a scheduled curriculum to child-led learning in which parents supervise and help.

Many families choose homeschooling for the academic, social, moral and religious advantages it offers; for others, the children's health and safety are determining factors. Most families cite a combination of these reasons to explain why they homeschool their children. Homeschooling has many advantages to the alternatives; it allows strong bonds between families to flourish, provides the necessary training in life skills, and offers a degree of safety that no public school can. Moreover, parents know their own children better than any other teacher or mentor, and therefore they can adjust to their students’ needs most appropriately. For parents who object to the content being taught in public schools, homeschooling can be the perfect solution.

Independent Schools

Independent schools are those schools not administered by any level of government and funded by charging their students tuition rather than accepting public funds. Independent schools generally select their own students. The independent sector is diverse, offering education according to various philosophies.

There are varieties of independent or private schools ranging from preschools to private colleges and universities. Among the types of independent schools are parochial schools, preparatory schools, boarding schools, trade/vocational schools, single-sex schools, special assistance schools, and even some military schools.

Independent schools often have the flexibility to avoid state regulations that stifle alternative educational practices. Therefore it is often easier for a small group of committed parents or teachers to create and maintain an independent school than a state-financed school.

Magnet Schools

To facilitate public school desegregation, many states and school districts have created magnet schools, which provide specialized curriculums and instructional approaches to attract students from a variety of neighborhoods in a metropolitan area.

One of the strengths of magnet schools is their ability to establish a unique focus such as gifted and talented, math and science or basic-skills programs.

Magnet schools today have three distinguishing characteristics: They provide a distinctive curriculum or instructional approach; They attract students from outside an assigned neighborhood attendance zone; and they have diversity as an explicit goal.

Q: Who is against school choice?

A: Those who benefit most from denying parental choice are against school choice. The National Education Association, predictably, is opposed to school choice. Mikel Holt’s book, Not Yet Free At Last: The Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Movement, details Milwaukee’s fierce battle to bring parental choice to education. His book chronicles the outright war waged by the NAACP, the ACLU, People for the American Way, and teachers unions against black parents and their legal representatives.

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