Does School Choice Harm Children?
"What about the children?" That should be the first question we ask of any proposal to change American education.
"What about the children?"
That should be the first question we ask of any proposal to change American education. Will it provide better opportunities for children? Will it improve the quality of their experience in school? The point seems obvious, but it is by no means always central to educational policy making.
It is especially crucial that we consider these questions for the newest educational movement--"school choice." In the school choice movement we have a different kind of debate than we've had in several decades. In place of debates about the how of education--including the phonics wars, cooperative groups and calculators--we now have debates about who. Who is in control? Who has the final say? Who knows what is best for children?
Proponents of school choice believe parents have the right, and responsibility, to decide where and how their children will best be educated. And the momentum seems to be in their favor. In 1999 alone, 421 new charter schools opened, bringing the nationwide total to 1,484 schools with more than 250,000 students.1 Similarly, privately funded scholarship programs have stirred unprecedented interest: In 1999, the Children's Scholarship Fund received over a million applications from low-income families in all 50 states.2 And while court decisions regarding "vouchers" have been mixed, the programs are flourishing in Milwaukee and Cleveland, while the most ambitious yet--a voucher program for the entire state of Florida--has been allowed to continue while its constitutionality is under review.
But choice also has its critics, who warn that allowing parents to choose will actually be bad for kids. Three common concerns are that school choice will (1) make parents too influential, (2) increase racial and class segregation and (3) lower educational standards.
If these claims are true, then school choice proposals--no matter how popular they may be--should be seriously questioned. But are the claims true? Let's take them one by one.
"School Choice Makes Parents Too Influential"
There are those who believe that one of the primary functions of schools is to detach children from their parents and the values those parents represent. School choice runs counter to this view--especially when the range of choices includes faith-based schools where values are strongly emphasized.
In his book, Religious Schools vs. Children's Rights, law professor James Dwyer argues that religious schools harm children. He also argues that parents have no fundamental right to make decisions for them.
This leads him to conclude that we should "understand children's religious interests not as a need for a religious upbringing, but rather as an interest in religious liberty." This liberty is violated when, for example, teachers impose "moral exhortations" which "effectively prevent many children from freely expressing themselves physically, exploring their sexuality or even giving affection to others."
Even if children express a preference for a religious school, Dwyer argues, the State would be justified in temporarily violating their short-term religious liberty to advance their long-term liberty. Overriding the child's decision "would be appropriate and even morally requisite" because young people who receive such an education are condemned to a life of "severe anxiety and anger."
"Knowing that these children will incur the scorn of mainstream America if they grow up to be like their parents," Dwyer states, "why do we not act to prevent that, for their sake, rather than expect mainstream America to develop a respect for people who are dogmatically for reactionary policies based upon religious premises we do not share!"
While this position may seem extreme, it is in fact widely held among education elites, like Princeton's Amy Gutmann in her book, Democratic Education (Princeton, 1987).
Advocates for parental choice of schools must contend with the charge that many parents are unfit to decide what sort of education their children will receive. Tragically, some parents truly are unfit--and society must sometimes intervene to protect their children. But does this apply to parents as a whole?
Sociologists Brigitte and Peter L. Berger argue that parents--rather than governmental agencies or "experts"--make the best educational decisions because their children are their highest and most immediate concern:
The common sense of parents can be trusted. Where expertise is needed, parents will seek it, and they will seek it intelligently. To be sure, there are always exceptions.... It is complete folly, however, to base policy on this small minority. It is particularly odious, and empirically nonsensical, to think that poorer and less educated parents are to be trusted less in these matters. On the contrary, we incline to the view that lower-income parents will invest greater care in such questions, precisely because of the disadvantages they know their children must face.3
Ironically, though, it is not parents who are negligent and abusive that most concern Dwyer, Gutmann and others. It's diligent parents who seek to pass their values and beliefs to their children. But children and adolescents flourish best when those who care for them--at home, in school and in the wider community--provide consistent moral messages.
Two distinguished social scientists with no stake in faith-based institutions recently reported that:
Young people growing up in the oppressive contexts of depressed urban neighborhoods desperately need a clear, coherent value system--a secure, positive belief system in which to cast self and imagine futures. The significance of a cohesive, explicit value orientation (most often Christian) and its importance for young people were apparent in many of the effective youth organizations we observed. ... The insiders' perspective on such groups is that they offer to youngsters--often in the most difficult of circumstances--reliable, supportive and firm environments for learning that do not exist in either families or schools.4
What others may call "narrowness" may in fact be the coherence and consistency that children need.
"School Choice Leads to Inequality and Segregation"
This claim is true when parental choice works through residential decisions, as some families move to more affluent communities with better schools while others are locked into whatever the creaking bureaucracy provides. The result is that American public education is highly segregated, both racially and economically.
Despite major efforts to desegregate, a study by Harvard's Gary Orfield shows that more than two-thirds of black pupils and almost three-quarters of Hispanic pupils attend schools in which they are in the majority. Many public schools have no white students at all.5
Contrary to prevailing opinion, private schools are actually more diverse than public schools. According to a national study by University of Texas researcher Jay Greene, 55 percent of children in public schools attended classes where 90 percent of students came from a single ethnic group. Only 41 percent of private school students attended such ethnically unbalanced classes. In addition, almost a third of private school students strongly agreed that students made friends with members of other racial and ethnic groups in their schools. Only 17.6 percent of public school students said the same.6
And despite dire predictions, public charter schools--the most available form of school choice--are not creating segregated pockets of white students. The U.S. Department of Education found that in 1998-99, charter schools enrolled a smaller proportion of white students than public schools overall, and a larger proportion of black and Hispanic students.7
But the most telling reply to segregation concerns is the overwhelming support for school choice within minority communities. Time and again, recent surveys have found that black and Hispanic urban parents are more supportive of vouchers than any other group--particularly when it comes to faith-based schools. Thus, a 1998 Commonwealth Foundation study showed that black Americans aged 26-35 support school choice vouchers by a staggering 86 percent, compared to a 57 percent approval rate for all age groups.8
"School Choice Lowers Educational Standards"
Critics argue that a lack of government oversight allows charter schools and private schools to escape from accountability requirements, resulting in lower standards.
The easy response to this claim is that study after study has shown that secular and religious private schools educate students as well as--or better than--comparable public schools. This is especially true when it comes to pupils who are at risk of failing. Public charter schools also appear to produce superior results, while serving a greater proportion of minority and special-needs pupils.
This answer, however, begs an important question: Do charter schools and private schools--no matter how well they compare with public schools--have high enough standards and good enough results? The answer, unfortunately, is no.
Compared with other industrialized democracies, American schools are unclear about what students should learn and are too inclined to substitute social and psychological goals for academic ones. We can ill afford to be complacent about any group of American schools--public, private or charter.
That is why school choice is no panacea. We need clear standards and well-paid, well-educated teachers who are highly competent professionals.
Nevertheless, school choice can stimulate crucial changes at the school level by increasing the rewards for success and the cost for neglect and failure. It can also enable parents to choose schools that reflect their own convictions--schools that they can support wholeheartedly. Such support is not only good for schools, it's good for students.
And last but not least, school choice makes it possible for teachers to choose as well: to work with colleagues who share their values and goals, in schools that reflect their own mission. That, too, is good for children.
Choice Questions
Doesn't choice drain money from public schools that are already strapped?
No. Myron Lieberman, in his column "Vouchers, Polls and Soundbites," points out that this is a favorite anti-choice argument--not because it is true, but because it pulls the heart strings: "[T]heir polls showed that many voters have fond memories of their public schools (as does this author), hence the argument that vouchers would hurt public schools is effective, regardless of how little merit it has."
But consider what has happened in these choice sites:
Milwaukee: "The union said the money [that went to private school vouchers] should have been used in the public schools to reduce class size and implement a new learning program. This argument ignored the fact that the district received about $7,500 for each of the students and sent the private schools only $4,400--giving the district an extra $3,100 for each of the children it no longer had to educate."
Florida: "Opportunity Scholarships themselves have no effect on the revenues for public schools. This is because the per student spending in the public school will remain the same regardless of the number of students who use Opportunity Scholarships. In fact, many private schools have tuition below what is currently spent to educate a child in public school. In these circumstances, the funding difference remains in the state treasury and can be allocated to enhance spending on public education."
Cleveland: "The president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers said the $5.25 million spent last school year on voucher students was money being denied to public schools. But state officials pointed out that the public schools ... came out ahead because the state funding formula still counted the voucher students in Cleveland's enrollment."
Does "competition" really improve public schools?
Yes. Indications are that competition does force public schools to improve. One of the most comprehensive studies on this subject to date is "Competing to Win: How Florida's A+ Plan Has Triggered Public School Reform." The report looked at more than 300 documents supplied by Florida public schools themselves. It concluded:
Not only have those schools with children already eligible for the Opportunity Scholarship program implemented significant reform, but all 15 of the districts with "F" schools--as well as those with "D" schools hovering on the brink of failure--have also moved swiftly to fix their failing ways.
The threat of losing students--and funding dollars they bring--has "instilled in the public schools a sense of urgency and zeal for reform not seen in the past when a school's failure was rewarded only with more money that reinforced failure."
Similar results have been seen across the country. In Milwaukee, the public schools have advertised on billboards their promise to provide individual tutoring to any student not reading at grade level by grade 3. The Albany (N.Y.) Board of Education ridiculed one woman's offer of scholarships to students in Albany's lowest-performing primary school, but also quickly replaced the principal, brought in nine new teachers, added two assistant principals and pledged an additional $125,000 for books, equipment and teacher training.
From "School Choice Facts," The Institute for Justice. Available online at www.ij.org/cases/school/facts/body.shtml.
This article appeared in Teachers in Focus magazine.
Dr. Charles Glenn is professor and chairman of administration, training and policy studies at Boston University. From 1970 to 1991 he directed urban education and equity efforts for the Massachusetts Department of Education.
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