Competition in Education Is an Opportunity, Not a Crisis

This article originally appeared at JBartlett.org.

There’s been a bit of a media freakout about the growing popularity of school choice programs nationwide.

The Children’s Scholarship Fund-NH confirmed this week that the Education Freedom Account program hit its 2025-26 enrollment cap of 10,000 students in early August.

“Record number of students matched with their preferred form of education,” headlines could have read. Instead, the tone of coverage was mostly one of alarm and concern.

Then The New York Times published a fascinating story Aug. 5 on public school districts’ (predicted) response to the growing popularity of school choice.

“Public schools try to sell themselves as more students use vouchers,” announced the headline.

In any other industry dominated by a single prov