As more studies about school choice are produced, it is worth considering how we are evaluating the efficacy of these programs.
School choice programs – though different based on the state in which they are located, the students they serve, and the funding mechanism at play – are all primarily measured by one metric: standardized test scores.
Though test scores are readily available and easily quantifiable data points, should we be using them to make sweeping claims about choice programs? They reduce the benefit of parental choice to a single number, and may not even be predictive of more important long-term academic outcomes such as college attainment and graduation.
Research out of New Orleans – an education system in which parents of all income levels have the opportunity to choose their child’s school – reveals that parents preference many other concerns above test scores. Though academics are important, other factors such as safety, religious instruction, location, special services, after school programs, and extracurriculars sometimes matter even more.
Furthermore, education scholars now argue that youth test scores might not actually be predictive of long term outcomes such as college graduation. They find that the impact of achieving a certain test score in primary school is weakly, or not at all, correlated with college attainment.
School choice programs are implemented to both expand access to quality education and to empower parents, the primary stakeholders in their child’s education. Thus, a helpful measure of success is simply parental satisfaction.
A recent survey of Louisiana parents surveyed their opinions about their child’s Scholarship Program school.
More than 93 percent reported that they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their child’s school and 95 percent of parents surveyed stated that they are happy with their child’s academic performance.
School choice policies should be judged by numerous factors, one of the most important being parental satisfaction. Determining the quality of a school only by the test scores it produces misses the bigger picture of why parents choose, and the fact that they choose for a wide variety of reasons.
