BUTLER: Learning from Sweden's school voucher success

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By Stuart Butler

OPINION/ANALYSIS:

Late last month, I returned to Washington after attending a conference in Stockholm. In both national capitals, thousands of children and their parents were in full back-to-school planning mode.

But there was one big difference.

In the capital city of socialist Sweden, as in the rest of the country, schoolchildren and their parents were finalizing their choice of public or private school - using the school-voucher program available to all Swedish children.

Back here in the capital of free-market America, Congress was phasing out Washington, D.C.'s modest voucher program. Some 216 low-income families, who thought they were newly eligible for a voucher, were told that they could rip up their private-school acceptances and go back to their failing public schools.

No, I don't make these things up. All children throughout Sweden get education vouchers. It seems that the citadel of socialism can teach our Congress and teachers unions quite a bit about education choice.

Sweden introduced school vouchers throughout the country in 1992 to deal with exactly the same quality problems we face in our public schools.

Under the program, enacted by a center-right coalition government, children can use a voucher to go to either public schools or one of the growing number of private schools.

Private schools include religious schools and even for-profit schools. One of the largest for-profits - Kunskapsskolan (or "Knowledge School") - runs 32 schools with about 10,000 students ages 12-18.

These independent schools, like the public schools, get a voucher payment for each child. They compete vigorously with one other because the money follows the child to the school of his or her choice. Schools must satisfy their customers ... or lose them.