Proponents of school choice often use the term “free market” to woo conservative voters and politicians. I’ve been helping families choose other education options for decades. One of the first things we teach in debate class to tens of thousands of students each year is that a proper definition of terms is critical to success. Understanding the definition of a free market is vital in evaluating if state-sponsored choice will achieve its goals. Is school choice a “free market” solution or something else?
School choice activists have defined a free market as when the government gives everyone the same amount of money to spend at any provider. I was taught that a free market was free from government intervention. Merriam-Webster defines it as “an economic system in which prices are based on competition among private businesses and are not controlled or regulated by a government.” These are two conflicting ideas.
What School Choice proponents are describing in vouchers or education savings accounts (ESAs) is a quasi-market. Julian Le Grand, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics, defines “‘quasi’-markets: that is, markets where the provision of a service is undertaken by competitive providers as in pure markets, but where the purchasers of the service are financed from resources provided by the state instead of from their own private resources.” In other words, the government gives everyone money to spend at their chosen provider. Quasi-markets mimic some market mechanisms, but it is a different economic worldview.
Research from other countries on quasi-markets found troubling results. In Sweden, research on quasi-markets in education found that prices tend to rise over time based on the value of the voucher or incentive. The voucher system has “generated unintended consequences that are detrimental to service quality and run counter to policy goals.” We should judge policy on its outcomes, not the hopes and dreams of the policy framers. Even current school choice evangelist, Corey DeAngelis, found in his 2018 study, “Lower-quality private schools are more likely to accept the voucher offer, regardless of the strings attached, because they are the most desperate for cash.”
School choice cannot be a “free market solution” while advocating for a system where the government collects taxes, sets funding levels, regulates providers, and distributes money to chosen schools. This is akin to claiming that food stamps represent a free market approach to grocery shopping or that Medicare exemplifies free market healthcare. The contradiction becomes clear when we examine what constitutes a free market—a system where prices for goods and services are determined by voluntary exchange between private parties, free from government intervention. By contrast, school choice programs depend entirely on government intervention—from funding collection through distribution and oversight. In his cautionary tale 1984, George Orwell said, “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” […]
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