Monday, October 10, 2011

School Choice: Good or Bad?

by Edd Doerr

School "choice" has been much in the news of late. Choice is a good word, as when I say that I favor reproductive choice for all women everywhere. But when choice is preceded by the word "school" a whole world of assorted meanings is conjured up. Let's examine some of them:

1. Choice among programs within a single public school school. We have that in nearly all public schools now, especially as the kids advance from grade to grade. Choices can include which foreign language to study, whether to take band or chorus or art, whether to take calculus or advanced chemistry, etc.

2. Choice among public schools within a single district. This is not uncommon. (When I was in high school ages ago a kid could choose among six schools - if he or she was white -- and you were on your own about transportation.) Note, however, that about half of all US kids ride big yellow buses to school. Expanding choice this way begins to cost school districts more money. In these days of shrinking school budgets it is increasingly difficult to pay for more buses AND keep classes reasonably small.

3. Choice among public schools beyond a single school district. This is possible in Minnesota and possibly elsewhere. See No. 2. The farther kids have to go to school the higher the transportation bill.

4. Choice among public and nonpublic (predominantly discriminatory church-related) schools entailing tax support for the nonpublic schools through vouchers or some complicated scheme of tax credits (viz: WI, OH, IN, AZ, etc). Here the costs zoom up out of sight. And not only would taxpayers be supporting public schools but also Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, evangelical fundamentalist and other schools that are pervasively sectarian. We would see our school population fragmented along religious, class, ethnic, ideological, ability level, and other lines, our religiously neutral public schools shrinking, and costs soaring out of sight. That is the vision of Republican governors and legislators and of Catholic bishops and other assorted religious leaders. And of course the citizen's right to support only the religious institutions of his/her free choice would go down the drain.

American voters have faced over two dozen statewide referenda of vouchers and other schemes to divert public funds to nonpublic schools from coast to coast. All schemes to channel public funds to sectarian and other private schools have been defeated by an average margin of two to one. Interestingly, this year's annual Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa poll found that Americans oppose school voucher plans by 65% to 34%, right at the results of the two dozen referenda. Unless block by the courts, Florida will have a referendum in 2012 on the GOP governor's whacko plan to remove the church-state section from the state constitution. (All of the school aid referendum results may be found on my web site ARLINC.ORG.)

8 comments:

lucette said...

Ed Doerr said:

"Choice among programs within a single public school. We have that in nearly all public schools now, especially as the kids advance from grade to grade. Choices can include which foreign language to study, whether to take band or chorus or art, whether to take calculus or advanced chemistry, etc."

I have worked a few years as a substitute teacher in a variety of schools and different neighborhoods. The experience is very discouraging if you care about equal opportunity. I could almost predict the race of the students that would be in my class from the subject and level of the class and from the location of the school. In rich neighborhoods, there is a large contingent of Asian kids, sometimes a majority in advanced classes. There are very few Black students or Latinos. Sometimes there is also an overwhelming majority of male students. However the male-female ratio seems to be improving now.
I believe that the students are assigned - and forced to go - to schools in their parents' neighborhoods, unless they have been accepted in a magnet school. A magnet school does not have one unique program for all students: there are magnet students and non-magnet students. There are magnet teachers and non-magnet teachers. I found that the non-magnet students in a magnet school are treated worse than they would be in a non-magnet school, i.e. they are neglected and their contacts are limited to low achievers, students and teachers. In fact, they attend a segregated school within their own officially integrated school.
Private schools are of course far worse. They are free to reject an applicant or to expel a student if they so choose. And the tuition selects for rich kids. I don't know much about private schools since I have never worked for them.
To make a long story short, I think that Ed Doerr is not very well informed about the public/private schools and the students' choices.

Don Wharton said...

Lucette, Ed said that there exists choice in the public school system. He did not say that those choices would work in all cases for all students.

lucette said...

Don, Let Edd answer. He does not need an interpreter and I am interested in his own views.

Don Wharton said...

Lucette, my comment is no impediment to Edd's answer if he wished to provide it. I think Edd has documented in other posts that the right-wing assertion that quality is increased via sectarian schools is on average quite false.

You have excellent experience which highlights ways in which public schools might perform better. The factors that you cite seem linked to a more systemic problem linked with general poverty and a lack of motivation from the home. Asian kids get that motivation from their parents and black and Latino kids often do not. That seems to be a separate issue from Edd's post.

lucette said...

Don, Although you "own" this blog, and you are free to interpret Edd's post as you please, let me clarify that the answer I have been posting is clearly linked to the paragraph which I cited and that I will reprint here:

"Ed Doerr said:
'Choice among programs within a single public school. We have that in nearly all public schools now, especially as the kids advance from grade to grade. Choices can include which foreign language to study, whether to take band or chorus or art, whether to take calculus or advanced chemistry, etc.'"

My comment relates only to this paragraph which I find inaccurate.
I am really interested in Edd Doerr's rather than your opinion.

There is no rush; my original comment is still very young.

Edd.Doerr said...

Lucette, I appreciate your comments and agree, except for your last sentence. I have been writing for years in various venues about the very problems you mention. But my "school choice" entry on Sec Perspec was intentionally limited to the narrow topic I chose.

I fully agree and have written ad nauseam about the inequitable funding of our schools, the unending conservative attacks on public education, the unprincipled diversion of public funds to religious private schools. I have spent the last 50+ years as a teacher and as a writer/editor/activist for public education.

Google to today's Bridging Differences column by Diane Ravitch, "What Can We Learn From Finland" in Education Week.

Also note that In have been involved in literally dozens of lawsuits defending public education and church-state separation.

You and I are really pretty much on the same page.

Edd

Edd.Doerr said...

Lucette, I wrote my comment above before reading your last post. Please reread what I said and you will find that what I wrote was accurate, though admittedly incomplete, which is why I inserted the "etc". -- Edd

lucette said...

Thank you Edd.

I reacted strongly because I felt that I had some kind of moral obligation to remind the SP readers of the reality faced by many public school kids. I had forgotten that you, yourself, had a great deal of experience with the schools shortcomings. Before working as a substitute, I had no idea of the sad situation of many kids, especially the children of immigrants. Their parents have a very hard time understanding the system, in part because of language problems, and also because they don't get any counseling. I assumed that most readers of this blog were unaware of the many heartbreaking situations in the schools. I felt that I had some kind of obligation to share my experience.