School Choice Benefits Students and Taxpayers

Bob Maranto is featured in the Inquirer today writing on why Philadelphia needs charter schools:

The academic data provided by No Child Left Behind show that Philadelphia's charter high schools achieve 95 percent of their academic goals, compared with 76 percent for district-run high schools. While 36 percent of Philadelphia's neighborhood high schools are designated "persistently dangerous," none of the charter schools is. And charter high schools boast a 94.5-percent graduation rate, compared with 49.6 percent for Philadelphia public schools.

The data suggest we can't afford not to open more charter schools - and close down traditional high schools.

Over on Cato-at-Liberty Adam Schaeffer blogs on the savings of school choice (in this case education tax credits in Florida) for taxpayers.  More on how school choice saves money can be found at SchoolChoiceSaves.org and in our policy brief, The Dollars and Sense of School Choice.

I also recommend visiting (and bookmarking) the Friedman Foundation's resources on "The Myths of School Choice" (HT to Greg Forster).