Editor’s note: This commentary, which compares Kentucky’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress to Florida’s, appeared earlier today in the Paducah Sun and was circulated nationally by the American Federation for Children.
Does offering parents the option of sending their children to public charter schools or providing them with scholarships to assist with private school tuition harm public education?
No, solidly no.
But the correct answer is solidly “no” if you’re interested in the facts offered by credible sources like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as “the nation’s report card.”
Just for fun, let’s try doing something far-left opponents of educational liberty rarely do: Consider unvarnished history and accurate comparisons of Kentucky, which offers no parent-controlled school choice, with other states that have such alternatives.
Consider, for example, the difference in educational trajectories between Florida and Kentucky since the early 1990s when neither state had school choice offerings and now, when nearly half a million students in the Sunshine State are being educated in public charter and private schools — including more than 100,000 via scholarship tax-credit policies — chosen by their parents rather than assigned by bureaucrats.
If school choice opponents’ theory that offering parent-controlled options on where to educate their children decimates public education holds up, shouldn’t Florida’s public system be devastated by now?
Yet, the NAEP indicates the opposite has occurred, sometimes even in dramatic fashion.
In 1992 — four years before Florida passed its first school choice law, which was a charter school bill — 26 other states outscored the Sunshine State’s fourth graders in reading while only four states and Washington, D.C., performed more poorly.
Flash forward to 2019, where only one state scored higher than Florida while 32 others and D.C. finished lower.
Similar shifts occurred in fourth-grade math and eighth-grade results in these same subjects.
While Florida was implementing a multitude of school choice policies while also improving its educational outcomes, Kentucky’s academic trajectory remained stagnant and — relative to other states — even declined in some academic areas.
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