Other Effects
Racial Segregation
Evidence on the impact of school choice on racial segregation is mixed, and quantitative studies specifically reviewing ESAs are rare, but most available data suggests vouchers have no impact on segregation levels, at best. School choice supporters argue that by providing access to a broader market of schools, minority students will have the same choices as whites, resulting in greater racial integration. However, empirical data often shows minority students using vouchers will likely attend majority-minority schools, while white private school students remain in almost entirely white schools (Reardon and Yun 2002). This is attributed to natural parental sorting into schools with similar demographic backgrounds to their own (Mickelson et al 2008). However, one analysis of the Washington D.C. voucher program found that it did, in fact, reduce levels of racial segregation in local private schools (Greene and Winters 2007).
Additionally, many private schools are non-secular and are thus often more racially segregated that public and secular private schools (Mickelson et al 2008). Because these schools are less expensive, ESA recipients who choose to attend are entering highly-segregated environments. One study found, for example, that the average black private school student will attend a school that is only 34% white, despite black students making up a much smaller share of the overall private school population (Reardon and Yun 2002).
Proponents argue that many of these studies are methodologically flawed, and rely on “apples-to-oranges” comparisons that bias the results. For example, the Friedman Foundation points out that because elementary schools draw from a smaller geographical area, they’re more segregated than secondary schools; and private schools are more likely to be elementary schools. Thus, comparing all public schools to all private schools skews the data (Forster 2016). Instead, they point to 5 studies of the Milwaukee-area voucher program which found either no relevant impact or a positive impact on racial integration.
Socioeconomic Segregation
Understanding how ESAs affect socioeconomic stratification depends on how the programs are implemented. Essentially, unless the program is explicitly constructed to avoid increasing segregation, it will likely contribute to unequal outcomes.
A large body of research (Gauri 1999; Hsieh and Urquiola 2006; Chakrabarti 2013; Contreras 2010) shows that school vouchers (effectively similar to ESAs in this regard) negatively impact socioeconomic segregation because high-SES students will self-sort into high-SES private schools at the expense of public schools. One well-known study by Manski (1992) even found that increasing the value of a voucher will increase levels of income segregation, and negatively impact the low-income students that remain in public schools.
Conceptually, this makes sense: because ESAs usually do not cover the full cost of high-tuition private schools, only high-SES families can use the program to supplement the cost of those schools, resulting in a class of private schools that only serve wealthy students. This tendency was confirmed by a study of the Chilean school choice program, the largest of its kind in the world, which found private schools engage in “cream-skimming” the best, and most wealthy students from public schools, leaving the state responsible for educating poorer, lower achievement students (Gazmuri 2015). Additionally, because race and socioeconomic status are highly correlated, areas with high levels of one type of segregation will likely have high levels of the other [add more].
[WHAT DO PROPONENTS SAY]
Programs that are explicitly targeted to low-income students will have more socioeconomic integrative impact. For example, [INSERT EXAMPLE]
