School Choice Improves Student Achievement In his new budget, President Obama proposed substantially increasing federal spending to improve public schools. However, steady increases in spending over the past three decades have led to little change in poor student outcomes, which worries many citizens. Much research, however, shows that what works well is parental choice among schools that compete fairly for students, as is the case with traditional private tuition-based schools. Rigorous studies comparing randomly selected and non-randomly selected students to over-enrolled private and charter schools, as well as large statistically controlled surveys, show that these schools excel in achievement and parent satisfaction. Surveys show that most American parents, especially those in big cities, would send their children to private schools if they could afford the tuition. In most countries, they can do this because governments pay both public and private schools to educate students. In the Zelman v. Harris in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court held that public scholarships given to students to attend private schools do not violate the Constitution, as long as parents choose schools for their children. However, teachers' unions and public school boards have generally succeeded in maintaining a public school monopoly in which public authorities choose schools for children. The nation's more than 4,000 charter schools have a private school advantage because private boards operate them with public funding. Under state regulations, local district school boards can establish these schools for a specified period. Eleven states, however, do not allow charter schools, and most others place limits on their number. Pointing to the question, 59% of national citizens achieved excellent results and parental satisfaction. In response to newly liberated markets, for-profit schools grew more rapidly. By 2008, ten growing school chains operated up to 30 schools. The transformed system introduced not only competition between providers, but also new technologies, including continuous performance monitoring and Internet reporting to parents on student progress. Presumably competition for profit would work just as well in capitalist America as in social democratic Sweden. Spending more on traditional public schools, as President Obama proposes, has been attempted and has repeatedly failed. Nor have the numerous public school reforms of recent decades worked. What has worked well in education and in the provision of services and goods in other fields have been free and competitive markets. They are the best hope for improving America's schools.