Not very, says the Cato Institute. Nor are any other states.' Linda Seebach comments in the Rocky:
As for the results, the scores are all quite low - as you'd expect, given that there's essentially no free market in education. On market ratings, Wisconsin and Connecticut are tied at a score of 26 (on a scale of 1 to 100) and Colorado is 10, in a tie for 38th place with Oregon, North Dakota and Mississippi. On policy ratings, the leaders are Texas and Wisconsin, and Colorado is in a 37th place tie with Iowa.Does that sound right? I have no idea. And unfortunately, it probably doesn't matter, because the constituency for a true free market in education could probably meet in Cato's conference room, if it has one, while the entrenched interests favoring the education system we have now are powerful and numerous.
That's a bit depressing. Here's Cato's state by state report [pdf]. Regarding Colorado it says:
Colorado falls below the national average with a score of 10. Although the state does have modest charter and private school sectors,virtually all of its students are enrolled in conventional public schools that are among the least free in the nation. In particular, parental choice within Colorado's conventional public schools is extremely constrained.
When we ignore current enrollment numbers and look only at Colorado's education policies, its score rises slightly to 13 out of 100, because there is some prospect for future growth in the charter school sector. Nevertheless, charter schools are themselves far from marketlike, so the potential for improvement is limited.
Can't wait for my kids to hit school age! I already have a headache.
Include the real estate agents among the constituency for the present schooling arrangement.
In areas where "the schools are good" it's a selling point. In areas where the schools aren't so good, there's not a very active market.
For a school to "be good" for most buyers it only has to compare with wherever the family is moving from, and it has to look nice from the outside. A quick drive past it and a good word from the agent is about all it takes.
For the few percent of buyers who insist on the very best schooling, they have or will find the money to put their children into private or parochial.
I learned this while househunting in Colorado, lo 8 years ago when I dropped the idea with my agent. He said privatized education is a non-starter because home buyers don't want it and realtors can't use it to sell their product.
The charter school advantage practically vanished for our G&T child as soon as she graduated from K to 1st---from "paying our own money" to "paid for by school taxes."