Customer Satisfaction and Educational Outcomes: Experimental Impacts of the Market-Based Delivery of Public Education

School choice, through private school vouchers or direct government subsidies, is a mechanism of outsourcing government services in the United States, Europe, South America, and the Pacific Rim. While extensive research exists on the effects of private school choice programs, nearly all focus on test score outcomes. Lost in the heated debates about the effectiveness of private school vouchers is substantial discussion of the effects on parental satisfaction. Drawing from a federally funded evaluation of a means-tested private school choice program in Washington, DC, we examine whether customer satisfaction is greater when education is delivered through a market-based governance structure. Because the program was oversubscribed in its early years of operation, vouchers were awarded by lottery, allowing us to experimentally determine the impacts. Our analysis reveals evidence that the program had a sustained positive impact on parental satisfaction. Moreover, positive student achievement and attainment impacts strengthen the validity of parental satisfaction as a reliable outcome measure.