Teachers unions and politicians like Bernie Sanders argue that school choice harms public schools by draining funds from them. The polar opposite is true. Private school choice generally increases public school funding per student, which is the primary measure of education funding. As explained by Stephen Cornman, a statistician with the DOE’s National Center for Education Statistics, per-pupil spending is “the gold standard in school finance.” That’s why a school with only 1,000 students would be better funded than a school with 2,000 students if they both received the same total funding. It’s the funding per student that matters, not the funding per school. Private school choice boosts per-pupil funding in public schools because they no longer educate the students who go to private schools, and the average cost of a public school education is 58% more than private school. This leaves additional funding for the students who remain in public schools.