Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
Who would have thought that Sweden's anything would be a pro-market, pro-competition, pro-school choice model for the U.S.?
On the occasion of School Choice Week, Sweden's former State Secretary of Schools, Odd Eiken, writes in The Daily Caller:
In 1993, Sweden introduced a system of school choice and vouchers, inspired by the ideas of American economists Milton and Rose Friedman. Even though the system was just as controversial then as any U.S. voucher proposal, the right to chose your school and bring the funding with you is today considered a natural right for families and is widely accepted by all political parties....
When we designed the Swedish voucher system, we followed the Friedmans’ advice to keep it universal and simple. The answer was a system where funding follows the student regardless of their parents’ income. Under our system, every family has the right to choose a school that’s right for their child. And every student brings with him the same amount of per pupil funding as the cost of the public school in his or her home district.
But under our system, equal terms work both ways. If a school chooses to be part of the voucher system, it has to be all-inclusive, provide national standards and have its performance monitored. And it has no right to charge its students fees beyond the voucher. The purpose was to create equal financial conditions while protecting the ultimate right of the voters and taxpayers to create a budget for spending on schools. Since the public school still often is the default choice, that means that independent schools need to be more creative, productive or academically successful with equal funding in order to compete.
With 15 years of experience, we in Sweden can summarize the effects. Education’s private sector share of students has grown from 1 percent to 10 to 15 percent, depending on grades. In some areas the competition is fierce, with both public and independent schools closing as a result. The variety of independent schools is large in both ownership — from parental cooperatives to corporate chains — and in innovative pedagogy and practice, of which the much-acclaimed Kunskapsskolan is not the only interesting example.
Vouchers are not the sole fix for education — there is no such single reform. But with real competition, independent schools are still generally performing better academically than public schools, even if the differences probably will decrease as their share increases and failing schools disappear. More important perhaps, is that all schools — public and private — perform better in areas where alternatives are plentiful.
It just goes to show that people from all sides of the political spectrum are uniting more and more under the banner of school choice.
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Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
Fascinating and wonderful. We need this here . . . soon.
Oct '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
I had an interesting dicussion with a Swedish exchange student last year. He was way more fiscally conservative than the average American Democrat - he perceived high Swedish taxes as more of a pension fund/health savings account than income redistribution.
I was too lazy to actually find out if any of that was true, but his distate for entitlements and income redistribution surprised me.
Edited on Jan 24, 2011 at 8:24amMay '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
Choice is something designed to be implemented only before you are born. Afterward, you belong to the child welfare agencies and the teachers' unions. Then, after being sufficiently indoctrinated you will never "vote against your own self interest." You will understand that all rights, privileges flow from the state. Government without End. Amen.
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
jhimmi: I had an interesting dicussion with a Swedish exchange student last year. He was way more fiscally conservative than the average American Democrat - he perceived high Swedish taxes as more of a pension fund/health savings account than income redistribution.
Edited on Jan 24 at 08:24 am
I have some family in Sweden, and even though they are incredibly liberal socially, Sweden's astronomical taxes have inevitably left them trending in a more conservative direction fiscally.
Anyhow, may Sweden's entire economy go the way of its school reform program: in the direction of more competition and choice!
Aug '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
Be careful when reading such articles. Sweden is not exactly famous for championing diversity of thought. Sweden is however very much above average in terms of conformity and groupthink.
The choice is between and an apple, an apple, or another apple. So as long your interested in a Red Delicious or Jonathan, no problem. But a Granny Smith? Well that may be a bit too extreme.
May '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
I saw the beauty of this system first-hand in Göteborg last September when my friend took me on a tour of her daughter's school. The teachers, children and principal were either brilliant marketers or were just THAT friendly and excited to be there teaching, learning, or supervising children. The school blew my mind and I was not surprised at all that there's a huge waiting list to get in.
May '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
Don't forget they tell you, also, that you like that red apple. It is absolutely group think over there and what and how you should think comes from the government.
May '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
Emily Esfahani Smith, Ed.
I have some family in Sweden ...
Where in Sweden, Emily?
May '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
The danger in a voucher system is located the the government's power to define what a "school" is; i.e., which schools qualify to receive the tax-supported tuition money. If the government's regulatory urge is allowed to metastasize, the result would be the conversion of participating private schools into de facto public schools.
Don't get me wrong; I'm a big voucher supporter. I think, even in a highly-regulated environment, what diversity and competition existed would be a great thing. The effect on the public's attitude would be great too--once the people's lips are moistened with the intoxicating elixir of Choice, could they ever endure life without it?--but let's get real, people: the law of Eternal Vigilance would not be repealed by a voucher system.
Aug '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
As seen in the Heritage rankings for economic freedom, the Scandinavian countries (especially Denmark) are surprisingly free market. If you decompose it by category, you see that in most respects the Scandinavians are slightly more more free market than the United States (for instance, they have less distortionary taxes) but of course the big difference is they lose points for the "government spending" category, which reflects much more ambitious tax + transfer systems. Another way to put this is that there's a big difference between "social welfare" and "socialist."
I may prefer that we not expand the state up to Swedish levels, but if you're going to have big government they've done it as well as possible so "trying to turn America into Sweden" isn't as bad a charge as it might be. Perhaps better that we accuse people of "trying to turn America into Greece," which is both a much nastier destination and a better reflection of what's wrong with American politics (ie, over-regulation, public sector unions run amuck, pension crises, regulatory uncertainty, massive debt, etc, etc).
Nov '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
I am against school vouchers, and I'll tell you why. First, let me say that school choice is very important. My family is in the situation of not being able to quite afford the private school we want, but not quite being able to send them to the public school. Vouchers would work great for us. But without them, our money just goes into the public coffers, never to be seen again.
Why am I against vouchers then? Simply put, the instant a school takes money from the government is the instant they do everything the government tells them to do. I get that private schools are already regulated. But how much of a stretch is it to think that, in order to receive vouchers, the school also has to teach certain specific subjects, such as sex education, alternative lifestyles, evolution, etc? Or how long until the teachers are required to join the teachers unions?
May '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
I think that the schools getting vouchers should not be dictated to by the government other than some sort of private certification. If I want to send my kids to a school that teaches middle school boys and girls in separate classes for math, I don't want some busybody in DC telling me that is sexist. If the Feds set the standards, it will still be broken.
Jun '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
I forwarded this to a friend of mine in Stockholm, who sent the following reply:
"It works here, but it works because children already had a system of choice previous to it's inception. Most schools in the U.S are cookie cutter with the same focus on a general education. The schools we term "best" are those with large pockets that can add more than just the general education classes so that students can choose different paths within the school. Here, almost all high schools are specialized. If they are geared towards blue collar work (forestry, welding, etc.) then they operate almost like a trade union guild so that the student can go to work directly out of high school and already have the specialized skills that most in the U.S. have to learn on the job.There are schools for the arts, and there are schools for prep for university. So, the concept of choice was not that unusual.
Jun '10
Re: Sweden's School Voucher System a Model for America
cont'd
"Most of the "voucher" schools are those that are either Christian (not many) or are a special language school, like the English schools (they only speak English in all the classes). However, people accept these because each school provides for a "prep" to something else. The English schools are liked because most kids that go there do great in business. The Christian schools normally graduate folks to go to missions, church work (which was state run until 10 years ago). So you see that it's a little different spin. Our system is set up to teach them basics, then let them do this specializing in college. Here, since they (the government) pays for college, why not set up the choices earlier, then avoid the cost of sending everyone to college? That's the idea."