School Choice around the World and the Lessons We Can Learn

Abstract

Education reforms that allow new educational providers to supply schooling into a state system can improve parental satisfaction and raise learning outcomes through consumer choice. Choice provides children with schooling that matches their interests. A child engaged in school is more likely to learn the civic values being taught and less likely to rebel against social order. When the state is unable to supply schooling, as in post-conflict settings where rebuilding to recover from the ravages of war takes precedence, other providers emerge to satisfy parental demands and choices. Parents from all socioeconomic backgrounds are capable of making informed choices using a range of methods to identify the schooling most appropriate for their children. Where government interventions are too rigidly imposed upon policies that target school reform, this can negate the benefits of school choice programmes. Unexpected school choice in post-Soviet Estonia offers a glimpse of how historical legacies can mitigate educational inequality. School choice can be initiated through top-down government reforms or through bottom-up approaches that are spontaneous and self-organised. School choice programmes yield many individual and societal benefits, especially for disadvantaged students. Empowering parents through school choice increases parental involvement and produces accountability. Education policies need to be informed by goldstandard research to ensure schooling reforms that make a difference to children’s lives