swedish pupils PISA results have been in constant decline since start its unlikely that voucher schools give better results. However it is impossible to know as there is no way of knowing how the old system had performed.
But an educated guess is that public schools would not have performed worse, studies of performance done by the Education Departement actually show that the public schools generally perform better (the swedish system is a mix with about half, I think, the schools beeing public).
The voucher system is a classic case of assymetric information, in that the parents and the students always have less information than the schools. Meaning that decisions made by the buyer is at best based on historical performance which dont guarantee future performance. With only the seller holding information about likely future performance the seller is unlikely to provide negative information.
Other negative events, even if rare, that has occured is private schools going bankrupt, making the goverment often at great cost having to step in to provide the education. prof. George Akerlof has written an excellent essay on this called the market for lemmons.
The finish model seem to be the optimal one, with the teacher having a set goal for what pupils are expected to know but having alot of freedom to set the corricilum after her/his own mind. This have also shown to have the bonus that teaching is a popular career and respected profession even as the pay by academic standard remain comparably low. The explanation to this is propably the freedom given. Another bonus is that it eliminates assymetric information as the teacher who is responsible also have the best information and knowledge how to reach set targets.
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