1/ @WeedonAmy suggests dishonesty to ask traditional public schools (TPS) to compete while simultaneously taking away resources necessary to compete. @OOPinellas responds that such dishonesty par for the course for school choice promoters. Let me add a little background...
2/ The idea of school choice (SC) began as a progressive notion. The argument was that large institutions (such as the public school system) have trouble meeting the needs of every individual participant (such as students).
3/ So why don't we set up small schools with fewer rules so that these underserved/unrecognized students' specific needs can be met? Few followers and idea went dormant.
4/ Pops back up in late '80s, Minnesota passing 1st charter school law in '91. Off to the races. Idea spreads to adjoining states and then leapfrogs across many others, like an infected traveler boarding a plane in one state and deplaning in another, transporting the infection.
5/ SC picked up by conservatives. Why? a) Attacks gov't provision of services; b) Attacks unions; c) Nominally costs no money/no tax increase but; d) Offers the illusion of solving an Ed Problem; e) blends nicely into arguments for smaller gov't.
6/ Now all but a few states have charter school laws. Over 7,000 charter schools nationwide with more than 3 million students. Something over $24 billion is diverted to charter schools from TPS annually.
7/ Ed vouchers started as a pilot program in Milwaukee in 1990. Other Midwest cities tried similar pilots. Programs now in at least 15 states with more than 190,000 students using vouchers, diverting more than $1.3 billion from TPS to participating private schools.
8/ For all this disruption and diversion of taxpayer $$ what do we get? Charter schools that perform, on average, similarly to TPS. Voucher students more often are worse off than their TPS counterparts.
9/ School choice can point to one unalloyed accomplishment: increased segregation by ethnicity, class and religion. This accomplishment seems at odds with the goals of public education. Why do we support three parallel ed systems? The answer....
10/ Because the goal is not really improved educational outcomes. Education is not the goal, education is a means to a separate and unaffiliated goal: smaller government. What? Surely this can't be right.
11/ But think about it. Arguments for smaller gov't include the suspicion that the private sector always is more efficient. So any gov't program must be strictly managed. Operations must be transparent, program goals measured and reported to ensure tax dollars spent wisely.
12/ Voucher programs in Florida are not transparent and report virtually no information on student performance. Parents of children using vouchers are given only participating school names and addresses. And much of that information is incorrect, I've found.
13/ Politicians and choice advocates continually misrepresent charter school accomplishments and often ignore reported problems. Little transparency, absent goals, insufficient oversight. This sounds like gov't programs small gov't advocates complain about.
14/ Yet school choice is their program with a few liberal, progressive advocates thrown in. So we have a program with the characteristics criticized by the very people who support the program. Doesn't make sense unless you understand what the real goal is.
15/ School choice is not about education. It's about strengthening an argument for smaller government. Education policy is just channel used to reach that goal.
