One of the most contested aspects of private school choice programs concerns their effects on students who remain in traditional public schools. Proponents argue that the threat of losing students to subsidized private options may incentivize public schools to improve quality and performance. Critics counter that these programs could harm public school students by diverting resources or by inducing sorting processes that leave public schools with fewer advantages in terms of student composition or teacher quality. While these competing predictions are well theorized, they largely assume a fully established choice program, leaving open the question of how public schools respond as such programs expand and mature over time.
Addressing this gap, David N. Figlio, Cassandra M. D. Hart, and Krzysztof Karbownik examine the long-run effects of a major private school choice program in Florida, which expanded nearly sevenfold over more than 15 years with a current participant population representing nearly 4 percent the size of the K–12 student population. The gradual growth of the program allows the authors to study how public schools respond not only to increased competition, but also to the maturation of the policy itself. To disentangle these effects, they exploit variation in schools’ initial exposure to private school competition as well as differences over time in voucher expansion.
Using a rich dataset that links student-level school records with birth records and applying a student fixed effects design, the authors find that increased exposure to private school choice is associated with growing benefits for public school students as the program matures. These benefits include higher standardized test scores and reductions in absenteeism and suspension rates. The positive effects are especially strong for lower-income students, though gains are observed across income groups. Both local and district-level private school competition independently contribute to improved student outcome.
- Journal Article: https://www.aeaweb.org/article...
- Working Paper: https://www.nber.org/papers/w2...