How about school choice to save $700 million?

New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee has produced a new study (discussed here in the Albuquerque Journal) claiming that taxpayers in our state could save $700 million by convincing 2,600 additional students to graduate rather than dropping out. Saving $700 million, not annually, but over the life of each graduating class, would be a very nice thing for New Mexico…and of course, there is no reason to stop at 2,600 additional graduates.

And, while the LFC’s recommendations are open to debate, they fail to include adding school choice to the mix. However, school choice has worked elsewhere as the chart below relating to the DC voucher program shows:

Lest we mistakenly believe that such success has only happened in Washington, there has been a great deal of success in Milwaukee schools which have also enacted a voucher program (of note is the dramatic improvement in both public and private schools in Milwaukee where the competition from school choice seems to have pushed traditional public schools to improve as well):