Besides the several numbers included in this interesting article, there is this statement: "Indiana’s philosophy of promoting choice has also extended to making it possible for students to apply to any public school—including those outside the school district in which the child lives."

For more than twenty years now, all public schools anywhere in Minnesota offer open enrollment to all students anywhere in the state, up to the limits of the capacity of each school district to receive students.

http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/EnrollChoice/index.h...

State funding of each school district is of course based on enrollment.

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/mnschfin.pdf

More students means more enrollment, so school districts make efforts to provide attractive programs that will bring students across district lines. This competition among school districts has promoted innovation in programs and resulted in a fair amount of interchange among students who live in different neighborhoods.

It's the free market at work.

If people have a choice of providers of a service, then the resulting competition creates bottom-up innovation.

> Detractors argue they drain finance from public schools and “privatise” education.

Why do detractors say this is a bad thing?

If a private school is doing such a good job that, given the choice, parents are willing to send their kids there rather than public school, how is it a bad outcome if people can send their kids there, at no cost to taxpayers above and beyond what public schooling would cost?

> Another concern is that vouchers can be used at religious schools and therefore erode the barrier between church and state.

This is sort of like saying that tax exemptions for religious nonprofit organizations erode the barrier between church and state. They would -- if those exemptions were provided exclusively to religious institutions the state wished to promote. But in fact, the nonprofit tax exemptions apply to organizations of any religion or no religion at all. Since the IRS treats every organization on an equal basis, regardless of religious footing, they definitely are in the spirit of "separation of church and state."

Likewise, the education vouchers presumably are usable at schools of any religion or no religion. Since the vouchers treat every organization on an equal basis, regardless of religious footing, they definitely are in the spirit of "separation of church and state."

This article would be credible if it had some numbers in it. How many children that attended private school on a voucher did well, compared to those that attended public school?

Another thing: parents who decide to use vouchers are a self-selected group. How about those parents who don't even know how to be involved with their child's education?

Considering that health visitors and community nurses are a program that works well it might be worth trying the same kind of outreach program in public schools. Who knows, a trial might even show that it works better than school vouchers.

I agree that more convincing data is needed. The only evidence offered that this school is more effective is that some public schools have created advertisements and use Ipads. Considering the fact that this is a Catholic school, I also wonder about what students might be alienated or rejected due to religious prejudice.

> Considering the fact that this is a Catholic school, I also wonder about what students might be alienated or rejected due to religious prejudice.

The key here is student choice.

Since the students themselves (and their families) select the school to go to, presumably if the students end up being alienated due to cultural factors at a specific school, the parents can pull them out and send them to another school.

But under the existing system, if a kid was socially isolated at a public school for whatever reason, and his/her parents thought that starting over at another school would be the best, their only options would be to move, or pay out-of-pocket for a private school.

I am interested in the name of the high school: Pope John XXIII was baptized Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. Of course, some Catholic high schools are private, i.e. not subsidized directly by parish or diocese. Not quite of course, but still true, I have nothing against such schools, having attended one myself. Yet I wonder whether The Economist produces a different impression by not specifying the probable alignment of the school.

"Roncalli High School is an interparochial archdiocesan Catholic high school. The term interparochial refers to the fact that the school receives financial and pastoral support, along with the majority of its students, from the 14 parishes that comprise the South Deanery of the Indianapolis Archdiocese. The school is named Roncalli in honor of Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, who, upon being elected pope by the College of Cardinals in 1958, took the name of Pope John XXIII."

http://www.roncalli.org/about