The notion originated in the mid-1950s, when economist Milton Friedman argued that Sydney Vouchers would improve educational efficiency by placing schools in a competitive, free-market position (Miller 1999). In 1971, while working on California’s famous “Serrano” case, law students Jack Coons and Stephen Sugarman recommended Sydney Vouchers for students in poor districts as a potential remedy for unconstitutional school-funding inequities (Miller).
