Through allowing more parental choice in education, school choice forces education into a free market environment. As it is now, parents send children to the nearest school, assigned to them by the school district. If a family is wealthy enough and chooses to do so, parents can send children to private schools. However, this family then pays twice for one education. They still pay their taxes, and they pay the tuition for the private school. Under a school choice plan, any parent who decides to send their child to a private school will receive a scholarship from the government, redeemable for tuition at scholarship accepting private schools. The scholarship dollar amount is far below that of the ave

McGroarty, Daniel. Break These Chains: The Battle for School Choice. Rocklin: Prima Publishing, 1996.

From the standpoint of well to do Washington, D.C. suburbs, a school choice plan may seem unnecessary. Choice plans are not designed to help the upper-middle or upper class children. David Harmer wrote, "In my travels as president of the Excellence through Choice in Education League (ExCEL), I rarely met rich white suburban Republicans who were desperate for alternative schools." (Harmer, 114) They already get a good education from government schools. However, rural poor and inner-city children do not have that luxury. For example, in the city of Milwaukee, only 40% of freshman will eventually graduate from high school, and the average GPA for students is a D+. (McGroarty, 30) School choice plans would help these students the most.

The answer, contrary to what many education reformers claim, is not to throw more money into schools. Only one nation in the entire world spends more money per student, per year than the US, Switzerland. Japan, whose schools consistently outperform those of the US, spends only half as much money per student. Accounting for inflation, per student expenditure has increased 40 percent since 1982, and has tripled since 1960. (Harmer, 38) The image of the "criminally-underfunded" public school is false.

Many people fear that schools supported by the new choice movements would be fly-by-night institutions that are out to make a profit, teach racial and religious discrimination, and condone violent behavior. However, legislative school choice efforts have placed regulations on independent schools. The Parental Choice in Education initiative in California contained the following items: (1) No school, which discriminates on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, or national origin, may redeem scholarships. (2) To the extent permitted by this Constitution and the Constitution of the United States. The State shall prevent from redeeming scholarships any school which advocates unlawful behavior; teaches hatred of any person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, or gender; or deliberately provides false or misleading information respecting the school. (3) No school with fewer than 25 students may redeem scholarships, unless the Legislature provides otherwise. These measures would prevent fraud and discrimination. School choice does not condone discrimination. Government already regulates private schools to some degree, and this would definitely not decrease with the use of vouchers.

There is no relationship between spending and educational achievement in grade schools. A recent comparison of per student expenditure and scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests by Forbes and Right Data Associates found the correlation coefficient for a linear relationship between spending and test scores to be 0.12. (This value could range from -1 to 1, the closer the absolute value of the correlation coefficient is to 1, the stronger the relationship.) (Brimelow, 52)

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2177
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)