Government controls 92 percent of the spending on elementary and secondary education in the United States. With limited competition, many public schools are substandard, particularly, in low-income areas and in inner cities. More affluent families can choose better schools for their children, either by living near good public schools or by sending their children to private schools, but those with lower incomes often are trapped. The tax-funded school voucher movement is one effort to allow low-income families to select the school that best meets their children's needs.
Limited tax-funded school voucher programs now exist in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Florida. Organized interest groups that oppose school choice, primarily but not solely the teachers' unions, are fighting the voucher programs and other efforts to create competition for traditional public schools. In Ten Myths about School Choice, two veterans of the school choice battle expose in detail the inaccuracies, half-truths, distortions and occasionally, outright lies that opponents are using in their campaign against tax-funded vouchers.