School choice initiatives, including vouchers and charter schools, can raise education standards if communities provide adequate student funding and effectively regulate the programs, a study released yesterday said.

"Choice is not mysterious and its workings are not inevitable....It all depends on how it's done," said the chairman of the commission that wrote "School Choice: Doing It The Right Way Makes a Difference," Paul Hill.

"It's challenging to do it right. It takes attention, and nobody's going to get it right the first time, but it is possible for communities to use choice as a way to enhance public education," he said at a Brookings Institution press conference yesterday.

One of the best ways to ensure that a school performs well is to provide full funding for students, limit state and federal regulation to admissions policies, and leave communities as much flexibility as possible to hire teachers and promote them, said the report.

"Communities that regulate new schools tightly are likely to get few options, even if they provide relatively generous funding," the report said. "The major benefit of tight regulation is that these communities risk little; the major disadvantage is that they gain very few new options."

A spokeswoman for the National Education Association, a teachers' union, Kathleen Lyons, countered that policymakers should focus on things other than choice and deregulation.

"We know what works: improving the quality of teachers, smaller class sizes, and providing kids with safe and modern school environments. Those are the things that have proven to make a difference and what we should be concentrating our energy on," Ms. Lyons said.

The 14 commission members found that academic achievement depended on 11 factors including targeting choice to disadvantaged students, program funding per child, parent information to support informed school decisions, regulation, transportation availability, and flexibility in hiring and promotion.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation funded the National Working Commission on Choice in K-12 Education study, which included commission members who supported and opposed school choice. The report analyzed available studies and material and began in October 2001.