"The organized opposition to school choice may argue that it's not good for their jobs, but they can't argue with the fact that it is good for kids."
Malcom Glenn, 2011, The Democratic Case for School Choice, and How It's Defying Traditional Party Breakdowns
"Educational choice is hardly a modern innovation. In some ways, it dates back at least as far as ancient Athens with its marketplace of sophists and philosophers...School choice as we think of it today originated with an essay penned in 1955 by economist Milton Friedman. Friedman's argument was that a voucher system of education...would promote both equitable and efficient schooling."
Frederick M. Hess, 2010, Does School Choice "Work"?, National Affairs, Issue Number 5
"Parents who enroll their children in a school choice program appear more satisfied with their children's education and tend to be more involved in their children's school."
Lisa Larson, 2002, Information Brief, Minnesota House of Representatives Research Department
"[Regarding vouchers] Let the subsidy be made available to parents regardless where they send their children - provided only that it be to schools that satisfy specified minimum standards - and a wide variety of schools will spring up to meet the demand. Parents could express their views about schools directly, by withdrawing their children from one school and sending them to another... In general, they can now take this step only by simultaneously changing their place of residence."
Milton Friedman, 1955, The Role of Government in Education
"Of course, school choice by itself is not a 'silver bullet' that will magically cure all our public school woes. That will come only from changed behaviors of both teachers and students in individual classrooms. But choice can pave the way to those changes."
Stephen D. Sugarman, 2000, Too Many Liberals Are On the Wrong Side of the School Choice Debate
"To place the influence of competition on school performance in perspective, if every school in the nation were to face a high level of competition both from other districts and from private schools, the productivity of America's schools, in terms of students' level of learning at a given level of spending, would be 28 percent higher than it is now. And that is with a relatively diluted form of competition."
Caroline M. Hoxby, Ph.D, 2001, "Rising Tide," Education Next, Vol. 1, No. 4
"Today, when I can look at your zip code and I can tell whether you're going to get a good education, can I honestly say it does not matter where you came from, it matters where you are going? The crisis in K-12 education is a threat to the very fabric of who we are...we need to give parents greater choice, particularly, particularly poor parents whose kids, very often minorities, are trapped in failing neighborhood schools. This is the civil rights issue of our day."
Condoleezza Rice, 2012, Speech at the Republican National Convention
"A growing body of research shows that disadvantaged students benefit when they are given school vouchers. Multiple studies have shown that families participating in school choice programs are more satisfied with their educational experience. Studies of student test scores have shown that students who participate in voucher programs outperform their peers."
Dan Lips, 2006, When Liberals Love School Vouchers
"I have long been puzzled that black leaders have not been the most vigorous proponents of the voucher plan. Their constituents would benefit from it most; it would give them power over the schooling of their children, eliminate the domination of both the citywide politicians and, even more important, of the entrenched bureaucracy."
Milton Friedman, 1975, Selling Schooling Like Groceries: The Voucher Idea