For the past several years, and especially since the publication of “Nation at Risk” in 1983, American educators, researchers and the public at large have been promoting and encouraging educational reform. The reform movement has been characterized by changes in educational policy and practice. Curricular changes include the back to basics movement, bilingual education, alternative and magnet schools, programs for gifted students and those with special needs, computerized instruction, and multicultural curricula. Changes in the institutional design of education produced open classrooms, community controlled schools, and business and industry’s collaboration with schools through work-study programs, apprenticeships, instructional materials, and teaching involvement.
None of these educational innovations has brought American education to the point where student achievement, as measured by standardized test scores, can compete favorably with those of other developed nations. The most recent set of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores showed that the national average for the Verbal and Mathematics tests again have decreased for each of the major ethnic groups in the county. Recent analyses of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test scores shows that United States achievement in mathematics lags behind that of 14 other countries.
Moreover, critical societal problems continue to be reflected in the behavior of the school-aged population in America. The dropout rate is alarmingly high, as is the rate of illiteracy, alcohol and drug use, teenage pregnancy and crime and violence. The response of Americans to these serious problems is often frustration, anger, and despair.
Now one more proposal for school reform, namely, school choice, is added to this picture. By school choice is meant assigning the responsibility of selecting a child’s school to the child’s parents or guardians, rather than or in conjunction with, educational administrators. The expressed aim of school choice is identical to the aims of other recent educational innovations, namely to improve student achievement. However, other programs and policies specify how improvement will occur. Generally, the mechanism of change is the curriculum, although in some cases it is a structural change in the organization of instruction. In contrast, school choice does not provide a specific blueprint for improvement. Rather it leaves to the schools the task of identifying and implementing programs and policies that would improve student achievement.
The mechanisms of improvement associated with school choice is the dynamics of a market system. Schools would be forced to compete for students. This is expected to make schools more accountable, leading to improved performance. It is up to the individual school to create a curriculum that its clientele finds attractive and to provide instruction that improves academic achievement. In this way, school choice represents a far more radical educational reform than other recently proposed and implemented changes. Indeed, school choice may be the first radical plan to restructure American schools since Ivan Illich espoused deschooling society in the sixties.
Several school choice plans have been proposed, varying in degree of departure from the present educational structure. The least extreme plan, called intradistrict choice, allows students to attend any public school within their school district. Several districts throughout the country now permit this level of parental selection. The most radical school choice plan provides parents or guardians with vouchers that may be used to send their children to any public or private school within or outside their public school district. This plan has been adopted on a very small scale in a few school districts. Several other plans exist or have been proposed.
Reactions to school choice proposals and experiments have been immediate and intense. Interestingly, bipartisan support is found. Both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats argue for school choice and it is a central part of President Bush’s plan to improve education nationwide. The sociologist, David Armor, argues that “choice… programs can foster diversity, enrich curricula, increase parental involvement, make integrations more successful, and expand educational opportunities for disadvantaged children.”
Other leaders of both political parties have criticized school choice on various grounds. Critics argue that school choice violates civil liberties and democratic principles. They disapprove of public support for private, religiously affiliated schools through vouchers and tuition stipends. They argue that the poor would be constrained in their choice of schools by more limited access to information about schools, by transportation difficulties and by a family structure that makes the neighborhood school more convenient and practical. School personnel generally oppose school choice because they believe it would weaken their control over the schools and have negative consequences for their job stability and security. The multifaceted opposition to school choice is expressed in the remarks of Bill Honig, (1990) California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, in speaking about voucher plans. He claims that a voucher system “risks creating elite academies for the few and second-rate schools for the many, exacerbates income and racial stratification, violates the constitutional prohibition against aiding religious schools, opens the door to cult schools, encourages tribalism, lacks accountability, would be chaotic (with) vast numbers of new schools created while most new enterprises fail and (would require that) taxpayers…pay more.”
Given such strong and opposing opinions about school choice, as well as the potentially far-reaching consequences of many choice plans, it is critical that the issue of school choice be examined carefully and comprehensively, in order to ensure that the school choice debate is guided by a clear understanding of the principles involved. The importance of carefully conceptualizing school choice issues stems not only from the consequences of a school choice policy for politicians, taxpayers, educators or parents. It is primarily for the present and future well-being of American children. Only reasoned analysis of the school choice issue will permit interested parties to transcend biases, fears and political persuasions to make informed judgments and decisions about school choice plans that benefit students and improve educational achievement.
(excerpted from chapter 5)
