by I guess I’m the opposite of many politicians: I favor school choice, yet I send my own kids to the public schools of an urban school district. I like the idea of attending and supporting a neighborhood school, and it helps that our neighborhood school is a good one. But not all parents have the same experience with neighborhood schools, and not all neighborhood schools approach education in a way that reflects the values and priorities of all parents. School choice should be contingent on our commitment to family empowerment, not contingent on charter or private schools having higher test scores than neighborhood schools. Charles Murray makes the point well in today’s New York Times, discussing the results of a new study showing that students participating in Milwaukee’s school choice program had similar levels of achievement as the rest of the public school students. He explains:
As an advocate of school choice, all I can say is thank heavens for the Milwaukee results. Here’s why: If my fellow supporters of charter schools and vouchers can finally be pushed off their obsession with test scores, maybe we can focus on the real reason that school choice is a good idea. Schools differ in what they teach and how they teach it, and parents care deeply about both, regardless of whether test scores rise.
I am not confident that we will be able to move the focus beyond test scores in the foreseeable future. It seems as though we cannot agree on much in terms of the prudent objectives of education, and so test scores, as the lowest common denominator, are now threatening to become the whole equation. (I have no idea if that analogy even makes sense — I have always been horrible in math, perhaps because of my own public school’s failings.) Just as we’re going to be seeing an increased emphasis on outcome assessment in legal education, it seems to me that our obsession with outcomes — particularly easily assessed outcomes, like test scores – is going to be driving the train for quite some time in all levels of education. If that’s true, it may not bode well for school choice. (Even here in Minneapolis, where school choice has long found fertile ground, we’re showing signs of “charter school fatigue.”)
Rob – good post. I wonder about this, however: “School choice should be contingent on our commitment to family empowerment, not contingent on charter or private schools having higher test scores than neighborhood schools.”
The big question is, what do we mean by “family empowerment?” I don’t want to fall into the trap of simply equating “choice” with “empowerment.” Like any allocation problem, there is a problem of scarcity of resources, and a question of who gets to choose and on what basis.
It can’t be the case that everyone who chooses the “good” school will get in, and it’s not clear that a viable market exists for better schools to compete with failing schools. There seems to be a market failure problem because of price elasticity of demand. Nobody can afford to pay for new schools to compete with failing schools in poor districts, while in wealthier districts, demand for education is relatively inelastic, and people will pay for alternatives (through the tax base or otherwise).
The result is that some — inevitably, the poor — get stuck in failing schools, while others — inevitably, the rich — are further empowered to make choices that aren’t available to the poor.
That said, I like generally like the idea of competition for students, so I think experiments with charter schools can be helpful. I’m just cautious about “choice = empowerment” when the issue is the inherent disparity in power between rich and poor.
If public funds are available, why can nobody afford to pay for new schools to compete with failing schools? I think there have been some successful charter schools started from scratch in very poor neighborhoods, and I think that some existing but struggling private (usually Catholic) schools have benefited from public funds in a voucher regime. I’m not sure that vouchers make sense across the board, but targeted programs, such as the one in DC, can do an enormous amount of good.
You’re right that choice does not always equal empowerment, especially if charter/private schools are allowed just to skim off the cream of the crop. Participating in funding programs has to come with some strings.
I am a little less willing than Rob to discount test scores, which gives teachers, students and families limited if important information. But I agree that scores should not be the only measure of choice’s success. The most telling evidence in favor of charter schools and private school vouchers, to my mind, is the waiting list of parents eager to acquire vouchers or enroll their children in some (not all) charter schools. If parents think that an alternative to their neighborhood school offers more safety, better values, or simply an educational philosophy more suited to their own child, then I am inclined to respect that judgment. I was struck that Diane Ravitch, in her recent book criticizing testing and school choice, virtually ignores parents and their preferences.
I think there’s another, much underrated argument for school choice . . . but I’m going to marshall my arguments and post it as a separate blog.
Just to be clear, I don’t intend to discount test scores –they may be one important measure of a school’s performance, and if a charter school’s test scores lag substantially behind the neighborhood school’s, perhaps the school district needs to reconsider the charter. I just disagree with the argument: “no difference in test scores means no reason to support school choice.”