Free-Market Principles of Education Policy

School choice means allowing parents to choose the schools their children attend, without financial peanlty if they choose private schools. Public funds follow the child to the school he or she attends. Choice empowers parents, enabling them to demand better results from educators. Competition for students discourages the growth of bureaucracy, and other barriers to achievement.

1. Allow parents to choose. Parents and other legal guardians should be allowed to choose the schools their children attend. They should not be penalized financially for choosing a private or religious school.
2. Funding should follow the child. Tax dollars raised for education should go to schools choosen by parents, not to bureaucrats far from the classroom.
3. Schools should compete. To finance their operations, schools should have to rely on tuition, includiung tax-funded tuition, paid by parents who choose their children’s schools.
4. Empower school leaders. Principals and other school leaders should be free to create missions and programs they believe will be most attractive to students and parents.
5. Empower teachers. School choice would free teachers from their current dependency on teacher unions, allowing them to act as true professionals.
6. Give parents adequate funding incentives. Tuition vouchers or tax credits should be sufficient to enable parents to choose high-quality schools, including secular schools that are not subsidized by churches, temples, or mosques.
7. Allow schools to succeed or fail. Entrepreneurs and teachers should be free to start or manage schools, and schools that fail to attract students should be allowed to close.
8. Preserve the autonomy of private schools. The autonomy of private schools should be recognized  as being in the public interest. New regulations should not be imposed on private shools, and public schools as well as private schools, should be deregulated.
9. Teach democratic values. The failure of public schools to teach civics and democratic values is a compelling reason to adopt school choice.
10. All parents should be free to choose. Teh goal should be to allow every parent to choose, require every school to compete, and give every child the opportunity to attend a safe and effective school.