The melting pot and school choice

In the United States, parents are offered free public education in the mainstream culture but must pay the full cost of tuition if they educate their children privately. This creates strong economic incentives for remaining within the public system, which promotes the assimilation of minorities. A Pareto improvement can be achieved by subsidizing private education in exchange for modifying its social content so as to reduce polarization. Popular opposition to voucher programs that facilitate school choice without regulating cultural content may partly reflect voters' concerns that such programs threaten to erode the common ground created by public education.