Significant gains for school choice.

The push for education reforms that would allow parents to send their children to the schools of their choice--public, private, or parochial--made very significant progress in 1993, according to "School Choice Programs: What's Happening in the States," published annually by The Heritage Foundation's Center for Educational Law and Policy. The survey found that school choice legislation was introduced or pending in 34 states; 33 governors had indicated support for school choice, up from 29 in 1992; and thousands of low-income students were able to vote with their feet against substandard public schools under 15 privately sponsored voucher programs, compared to six in 1992 and two in 1991.

Long advocated by conservative reformers, choice would force public schools to improve by breaking the government's monopoly over education in America, explains Allyson Tucker, manager of the Center for Educational Law and Policy and co-author of the survey. By contrast, most other education-reform proposals, such as longer school days, have failed in the past.

For example, over-all public spending on education has been rising for decades, but student performance has been...