The American Enterprise Institute brought together some luminaries in academia and policy yesterday to ask whether vouchers “force public schools into a zero-sum game by redirecting public funds and promising students to private schools? Or do school-choice options spur healthy competition by pressuring public schools to improve.” The forum was built, in part, around the research of Northwestern University economics professor David Figlio, who recently found that the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program boosted the academic performance of the public schools faced with the threat of losing students to the program. (Disclosure: the editors and contributors of redefinED work for the nonprofit that administrates the Florida program) Other panelists included Grover J. Whitehurst of the Brookings Institution, Nada Eissa of Georgetown University and Jane Hannaway of the Urban Institute.
The video here runs nearly 90 minutes:
