Anytime school vouchers are mentioned as an alternative to failing public schools, to provide families an educational option, the bureaucrats say the answer is putting more money into the public school system to “make it better.” But the paradigm they should be studying is the one created by home-schoolers. These are kids taught by their own mothers who get paid nothing.

A recent report released in March, 1999, by Dr. Lawrence Rudner and the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation, studied the test scores of 20,760 students and found that home school students, at every grade level, significantly outperform their public and private school peers.

From grades 1-4 they perform one grade higher, and the gap widens in 5th and 8th grades where they perform 4 grades above the national average.

Students who have been home schooled their entire academic careers post the highest scholastic achievement. And the median spending on educational materials was $400.

So more money is not the answer to a better education . . . allowing parents the right to choose it is.

This is Nina May at ninamay.com.