Prof. Martin Carnoy, who does research on school vouchers, on how experience in education policy has not borne out the theoretical superiority of the market: We need to go back to basics on educational vouchers and see whether what was claimed for them was ever realized in practice. In the 1950s, Milton Friedman introduced the concept, arguing that if private schools could compete with public schools by having access to public funding (vouchers), the cost of education would fall and parents would feel better off because they would be able to choose their child's school. Friedman advocated a voucher plan that included all families, regardless of income. That was precisely the plan he inspired to be implemented in Chile in 1981, and to be placed on the ballot twice in California, in 1993 and in 2001.