Florida’s Investment in School Choice 11x More Cost-Effective than Increasing Public School Spending, New Research Finds

AFC Senior Fellow Patrick Graff, PhD synthesizes two decades of high-quality research, demonstrating that school choice-driven competition dramatically benefits public school students

Dallas, Texas — Competition from Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship program produced academic achievement gains for public school students that were at least 11 times larger than what the best research predicts those same dollars would have produced if spent on increasing K-12 public education funding directly instead, according to research released on Wednesday by American Federation for Children (AFC) Senior Fellow Dr. Patrick Graff

The study addresses a critical policy question: Which approach – school choice competition or new education spending – produces greater academic returns for public school students for the same cost? Drawing from recently published, peer-reviewed research by top economists on school spending and the competitive effects of school choice in Florida over its first fifteen years, Graff puts these approaches head-to-head.

The answer, Graff finds, is school choice, and the difference is dramatic.

Statement from Dr. Patrick Graff, Senior Fellow, American Federation for Children:

“We know that funding for education is important, but how states use that funding and the incentives of the systems within which you spend it matter tremendously. This new evidence on the cost-effectiveness of Florida’s approach shows that fostering competition and accountability through well-designed school choice policy produces far greater academic returns for public school students than simply increasing public education budgets.

My analysis offers a compelling, empirical response to arguments suggesting school choice harms public schools. The evidence from Florida is clear: expanding private school choice programs helped public school students, too. In contrast to most education interventions in which cost goes up and effect sizes go down as they attempt to scale, the effect of competition on public schools in Florida grew with program size, accelerating Florida’s return on investment. Expanding school choice in Florida was a highly effective means of improving public school students’ academic performance at scale and should be a priority in every state looking to improve its K-12 outcomes.”

Statement from Tommy Schultz, CEO, American Federation for Children:

“Graff’s rigorous research shows a path for legislators in every state to pursue the best education intervention for students: expanding school choice. This research analysis debunks critics’ claim that school choice harms kids in public school and instead proves that school choice expansion is the smartest investment we can make to support students’ success. This shows that the golden age of American education is dawning as education freedom spreads across the country.”

Details:

• Florida’s tax credit scholarship program cost approximately $2.8 billion over the first 15 years of the program. As a result, public school students in schools facing higher levels of competition gained an additional 120 days of learning (two-thirds of a school year) after 15 years.
• If Florida had instead used the school spending approach to achieve the same result, the best school spending research predicts that would have cost the state an estimated $31.8 billion. This represents an 11-to-1 cost-effectiveness advantage for school choice.
  The longer the program operated and the larger it grew, the stronger and more cost-effective its competitive effects became.
• The true return on investment is likely even larger. This analysis makes conservative assumptions about the effects of competition, understating its full effect. For example, this analysis does not include cost savings to the state for students switching into private schools, additional effects of competition shared by all public school students across the state, or assumptions about how much school spending effects may lose efficacy at a statewide scale – all of which suggest 11x as a lower bound of the true cost-effectiveness multiplier.
• Graff’s research suggests that scholarship programs — including those like the newly established Education Freedom Tax Credit — have the potential to generate far greater academic gains than equivalent increases in general education spending. As competition grows through choice programs, the evidence indicates that academic outcomes improve for scholarship students and public school students alike.

About AFC:

The American Federation for Children is the nation’s largest school choice advocacy organization and a leading force in advancing education freedom. AFC has helped pass more than 200 school choice laws nationwide, empowering families with meaningful options and elevating parent voices in education policy.

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