National Voucher Plans in Chile and Sweden: Did Privatization Reforms Make for Better Education?

One of the main purposes of the Swedish voucher reform was to increase competition among schools, raising their cost-effectiveness and making public schools more service oriented to students and their families. No data are available to test whether competition and increased local control have produced higher average achievement outcomes. Continued support of choice in polls suggests that parents may consider schools to be more responsive because of the reforms.

After four years, it is difficult to say whether Swedish voucher reform, on the whole, increased overal educaitonal quality and cost-effectiveness or sharpened segregation among schools and shifted some resources from public to private schools.