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academic performance Angela Dills cascade Policy Institute Dr Corey DeAngelis Education Savings Account educational problem homewark mental health preschool public school School choice

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School Choice Improves Student Mental Health

By Miranda Bonifield

If you’ve done your homework on school choice, you know it’s been linked with improved student safety, improved quality of public schools, and academic performance. But another compelling virtue of school choice, recently published by Dr. Corey DeAngelis and Professor Angela Dills, is its association with improved mental health and decreased rates of suicide. Even when controlling for students’ family backgrounds, the paper continued to find a strong association between school choice and decreased rates of suicide.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. When families are empowered to choose the best fit for their children, they are likely to favor schools with safe and nurturing environments that suit their child’s unique needs. The best answer to Oregon’s educational problems isn’t a longer school year or more access to preschool, even if those are potentially good things for some families. The answer is to expand Oregonian families’ choices through Education Savings Accounts, which would reserve a portion of state education funding for students’ families—making sure that money follows the educational needs of individual children, not the blanket dictates of administrators.

Every child should have the chance to receive a quality education. Oregon should make a change that’s good for our kids’ mental health and their long-term success.

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Underestimating Public School Spending

By Steve Buckstein

A 2017 national poll on education issues found, among other things, that most Americans underestimate how much money is being spent to educate kids in their local public schools. College-educated whites, for example, underestimated school spending by a fourth, while less-educated whites underestimated spending by almost a third. Before finding out the real numbers, 55 percent of the more-educated group favored higher spending, while 46% of the less-educated did so.

But, when told the actual spending levels, support for higher spending dropped by 14% among the more-educated and by 12% among the less-educated.

While the poll didn’t break down results by state, we know the big cry in Oregon is that we aren’t funding schools adequately. In reality, we were recently spending $14,827 per student in average daily attendance, compared to the national average of just $13,900. We spend more than 30 other states.

When more Oregonians learn this surprising truth, their support for higher school spending may drop, hopefully to be replaced by support for policies that might actually make a difference. One such policy is a universal Education Savings Account program that offers a portion of current school spending to families interested in choosing between their local public schools, private, religious, online, and home schools. Such choices can save tax dollars and improve educational outcomes. Win, win.

Steve Buckstein is Senior Policy Analyst and Founder of Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.

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