www.friedmanfoundation.org/friedman/newsroom/ShowNewsItem.do?id=80236 School choice: Voucher Lessons from Sweden
April 09, 2008
By Steve Darden
Seeker Blog
School choice has come to Sweden in a big way over the past 10 years, confounding widespread perceptions of the Swedes as statists and providing inspiration for supporters of market-based education reform in the U.S.
Sweden has the highest rate of taxation in the West and the highest ratio of public spending to GNP of the industrialized nations. For all but nine years during the postwar era, the Social Democrats have ruled this Scandinavian country.
Yet, as a result of a top-to-bottom education reform launched in 1991-92, virtually anyone can start a school in Sweden and receive public funding. Families are free to choose whatever state-subsidized school they prefer for their children, including those run by churches.
After 10 years, what lessons can be learned from Swedish education reform?
School Choice Works
"The main lesson to be learned from the Swedish reforms is that school choice works," concluded Swedish economists and researchers Mikael Sandström and Fredrik Bergström in a January 2003 study for the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation. "Sweden has left behind an almost completely centralized system, with tight national control of schooling and a minuscule role for non-governmental institutions."
In short, Sweden has done a 180-degree turn in education over the past decade, in the process generating a number of positive results. Although the U.S. is far behind Sweden and much of Western Europe in school choice–ironically so, given the vibrancy of the American market economy–the researchers believe there are a number of lessons the U.S. can take from Sweden.
Among the positive outcomes they found from Sweden's shift to free educational choice:
* The number of independent schools has increased fivefold. Under Swedish law, they now must be funded equally with the municipal schools–as Swedish public schools are known–once they have received approval to operate.
* Attendance in independent schools has quadrupled.
* Student performance in Sweden's government-run schools has increased, the apparent result of competition from a much-increased supply of schools.
* Most of the independent schools are run by for-profit educational management companies, with no negative effect on the quality of education.
* Free choice under a voucher-style approach has not led to advantages for the elite rich. In fact, poorer Swedes choose independent schools at higher rates than do affluent families.
* While there are differences of opinion within the teaching profession, the Swedish teacher unions have not opposed school choice. Surveys show teachers tend to prefer working in the independent schools because they find the climate for teaching better there.
Were full choice to become the norm in the U.S., perhaps American teachers would begin to wonder why their unions have demonized vouchers. The study notes that when teachers can choose not only among several municipal schools but also many independent schools, they benefit by being able to market their skills and choose a school that best fits their interests.
