Education Study Shows Vouchers Benefit Students and Public Schools

The Beacon Center of Tennessee has just released the “Saving Education” study, a new study on education, which focuses on the impact of opportunity scholarships, or vouchers, on the public school system. You can download the full study here.


The results are eye-opening showing that students leaving public schools with vouchers are not the only ones who are helped; vouchers also benefit those children who stay in the public school system.

Charter schools have falsely been attacked by the proponents of the status quo claiming that they are a financial drain on the school system.  When a child goes to a charter school, the money follow the child, yet opponents of school choice claim that when a child leaves regular public school for a charter that there is not a proportional drop in overhead, claiming overhead expenses are not variable and cannot be cut. With vouchers, they cannot make that claim.  With vouchers only a portion of per pupil funding follows the child meaning there will be a substantial amount of money left over for the public school district.

The study shows that on average, school districts across the state would have an additional $612 on top of fixed costs for every student that leaves the school district with a scholarship. Additionally, if a voucher program was focused on failing school districts, such as districts here in Nashville and the other urban school districts, these districts would save an average of more than $1,000 per student who left with a voucher.

“The teachers’ union keeps repeating the myth that opportunity scholarships would take away money from our public schools, but that has been proven wrong yet again,” said Beacon CEO Justin Owen.

Please read this study and arm yourself with the facts.  No parent should have their child trapped in a failing school, yet the teachers unions and other opponents of school choice fight every effort to bring choice to education. 

Top Stories