Voucher system validated via lottery

This reference is used to annotate "I would never send my kids to school" (2017) by Piotr Wozniak

The Economist summarizes the concept of the school voucher, the opposition, and the good outcomes:

The principle is simple. The state pays; parents choose; schools compete; standards rise; everybody gains. Simple, perhaps, but it has aroused predictable—and often fatal—opposition from the educational establishment. Letting parents choose where to educate their children is a silly idea; professionals know best. Co-operation, not competition, is the way to improve education for all. [...] But these arguments are now succumbing to sheer weight of evidence. Voucher schemes are running in several different countries; those that use a lottery to hand out vouchers offer proof that recipients get a better education than those that do not. Harry Patrinos, an education economist at the World Bank, cites a Colombian programme to broaden access to secondary schooling, known as PACES, a 1990s initiative that provided over 125,000 poor children with vouchers worth around half the cost of private secondary school. Crucially, there were more applicants than vouchers. The programme, which selected children by lottery, provided researchers with an almost perfect experiment, akin to the “pill-placebo” studies used to judge the efficacy of new medicines. The subsequent results show that the children who received vouchers were 15-20% more likely to finish secondary education, five percentage points less likely to repeat a grade, scored a bit better on scholastic tests and were much more likely to take college entrance exams

Title: New research shows that parental choice raises standards—including for those who stay in public schools

Date: May 3rd 2007

Link: http://www.economist.com/node/9119786

Backlink: Education reform