The nation’s largest private school choice program is increasing college graduation rates
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School choice in Florida is paying dividends when it comes to success in college, according to a new report published by the left-leaning Urban Institute.

Researchers found that low-income Florida students attending a private school on a tax-credit scholarship earned acceptance at Florida colleges at a higher rate than their public school counterparts.

The Florida Tax Credit (FTC) Scholarship provides low-income families a scholarship to be used toward tuition at a participating private school and is the largest private school choice program in the nation. Funding for scholarships stems from corporate donors who are reimbursed through tax credits.

Students who participated in the FTC program increased college enrollment rates by 6 percentage points. Moreover, the benefit of the school choice program grows with the number of years students participate.

In addition to being from low-income families, the students studied were not high academic performers before receiving the tax credit scholarship. Rather, they were predominantly enrolled in low-performing public schools and had poor test performance compared to their peers.

This suggests that the schools chosen by their parents after scholarship receipt were the crucial units of change that propelled students toward achieving college acceptance. Catholic schools and non-Christian religious schools had higher impacts on college enrollment than non-Catholic Christian schools and nonreligious private schools.

Much of the research on school choice programs in Florida, Louisiana, and Indiana has focused on short term effects such as standardized test scores. This research has yielded opposing, sometimes overtly politicized, conclusions. Additionally, private schools often do not “teach to the test” as much as do public schools, as their curriculum does not have to remain in lockstep with bureaucratically-imposed state standards.

Yet, this new report demonstrates that school choice can have long-term, lasting impacts beyond primary school standardized test scores. As these scholarship programs continue into the future, researchers will have a longer time horizon over which to examine these benefits.

Ultimately, opponents of school choice who cite only the short-term research of poor standardized test scores may be silenced by the long-term life benefits of school choice programs.

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Source: Red Alert Politics