School choice: Difference between revisions
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
The Organisation Internationale pour le Droit à l'Education et la Liberté d'Enseignement (OIDEL), a international [[non-profit organization]] for the development of [[freedom of education]], maintains that the [[right to education]] is a fundamental [[human right]] which cannot exist without the presence of State benefits and the protection of individual liberties. According to the organization, freedom of education notably implies the freedom for parents to choose a school for their children without discrimination on the basis of finances. To advance freedom of education, OIDEL promotes a greater parity between public and private schooling systems.<ref>{{cite web|title=OIDEL - A Presentation|url=http://www.oidel.ch/anglais/presentation/prospectus%20OIDEL%20anglais.pdf|publisher=Organisation Internationale pour le Droit à l'Education et la Liberté d'Enseignement|pages=1–2|format=Portable Document Format|accessdate=2009-04-18 |quote= }}</ref> |
The Organisation Internationale pour le Droit à l'Education et la Liberté d'Enseignement (OIDEL), a international [[non-profit organization]] for the development of [[freedom of education]], maintains that the [[right to education]] is a fundamental [[human right]] which cannot exist without the presence of State benefits and the protection of individual liberties. According to the organization, freedom of education notably implies the freedom for parents to choose a school for their children without discrimination on the basis of finances. To advance freedom of education, OIDEL promotes a greater parity between public and private schooling systems.<ref>{{cite web|title=OIDEL - A Presentation|url=http://www.oidel.ch/anglais/presentation/prospectus%20OIDEL%20anglais.pdf|publisher=Organisation Internationale pour le Droit à l'Education et la Liberté d'Enseignement|pages=1–2|format=Portable Document Format|accessdate=2009-04-18 |quote= }}</ref> |
||
Kathy is RAWWWW at soccer ! <3 |
|||
== Criticism == |
|||
Many opponents of school choice such as [[]] argue that public schools perform similarly to private schools when teaching similar groups of students, and that the conception of public schools as "failing" in comparison to private schools is more due to the demographic differences between public and private schools than to actual differences in the quality of the education the schools offer.{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}} "School choice" as it entails a switch from public to private schooling would therefore do little to solve the problems facing the educational system, since a private school would perform no better than a public school when faced with exactly the same student body. |
|||
Opponents of school choice often object to the use of the term itself, viewing it as loaded political vocabulary. |
Opponents of school choice often object to the use of the term itself, viewing it as loaded political vocabulary. |
||
Revision as of 18:48, 7 January 2011
Policy}} [dead link]</ref>
Others argue that since children from impoverished families almost exclusively attend public schools, school choice programs would allow these students to opt out of bad schools and acquire a better education, thereby granting the decision-making power to students and their parents, not school administrators. Supporters say this would level the playing field by broadening opportunities for low-income students to attend as good of schools as the middle classes instead of the current two-tiered system which educates the middle and upper classes, but not the lower classes, particularly minorities.[1]
The Organisation Internationale pour le Droit à l'Education et la Liberté d'Enseignement (OIDEL), a international non-profit organization for the development of freedom of education, maintains that the right to education is a fundamental human right which cannot exist without the presence of State benefits and the protection of individual liberties. According to the organization, freedom of education notably implies the freedom for parents to choose a school for their children without discrimination on the basis of finances. To advance freedom of education, OIDEL promotes a greater parity between public and private schooling systems.[2]
Kathy is RAWWWW at soccer ! <3
Opponents of school choice often object to the use of the term itself, viewing it as loaded political vocabulary.
Opponents also argue that school choice in the form of vouchers could result in nothing more than a cash-handout for many middle-class and wealthy families already sending their kids to private schools, with disadvantaged families either unable to secure enrollment or unable to cover costs in addition to the vouchers.[3] Under voucher programs, private schools may be able to reject students who are expensive to educate due to special needs or students who they feel would disrupt the learning environment, and opponents of voucher programs argue that this would leave such students under a system of de facto segregation.[citation needed] School choice opponents also charge that students who are unable, because of their parents' educational level or the lack of reliable transportation, to leave their local schools may be hurt as additional funding is cut from their schools.[4]
When parents flee troubled schools under NCLB's School Choice option, the district loses not only the per-pupil funding, but must provide transportation to the new school. This causes a funding drain that may seriously impact the students left in the school.[5]
Different solutions have been proposed to school choice that do not take away money or require schools to compete against each other. If incentive is what is needed, it already exists: the school board is elected by direct popular vote.[citation needed] Instead of government forcing school choice, citizens and parents need to become more aware of who runs the schools, and for laws to help improve that awareness.[citation needed] Any head of the school board who values their position will likely do everything possible to ensure the school runs better, if citizens are more active in deciding who stays or goes.
International overview and major institutional options
France
The French government subsidizes most private primary and secondary schools, including those affiliated with religious denominations, under contracts stipulating that education must follow the same curriculum as public schools and that schools cannot discriminate on grounds of religion or force pupils to attend religion classes.
This system of école libre (Free Schooling) is mostly used not for religious reasons, but for practical reasons (private schools may offer more services, such as after-class tutoring) as well as the desire of parents living in disenfranchised areas to send their children away from the local schools, where they perceive that the youth are too prone to delinquency or have too many difficulties keeping up with schooling requirements that the educational content is bound to suffer. The threatened repealing of that status in the 1980s triggered mass street demonstrations in favor of the status. [citation needed]
Sweden
Sweden enacted school choice in 1992.[6] Its school choice system is one of the freest in the world, allowing students to use state funding for the public or private school of their choice, including religious and for-profit schools.[6] In the fifteen years after enactment, private school enrollment increased from 1% to 10% of the student population.[6]
Canada
Ontario is the only large province in Canada with limited school choice funding, Catholic, Secular and one Protestant school receive funding and are open to all students. In 2003, following an international human rights ruling, the provincial Conservative government gradually introduced a tax credit over 5 years, (when it would have been fully implemented it would have been worth up to 50% of tuition to a maximum of $3,500 at any independent school in Ontario) in order to meet the human rights norms and expand funded choice to all interested parents. However, the tax credit was retroactively canceled by the subsequent Liberal government when it had been only been in place for two years to the $1,000 point. Currently there are over 900 independent schools in Ontario. The only school choice program available to non-rich parents who wish to send their children to an independent school is a privately funded program called Children First, a program of The Fraser Institute.
Chile
In Chile, there is an extensive voucher system in which the state pays private and municipal schools directly, based on average attendance (90% of the country students utilize such a system). The result has been a steady increase in the number and recruitment of private schools that show consistently better results in standardized testing than municipal schools. The reduction of students in municipal schools has gone from 78% of all students in 1981, to 57% in 1990, and to less than 50% in 2005.
Regarding vouchers in Chile, researchers have found that when controls for the student's background (parental income and education) are introduced, the difference in performance between public and private subsectors is not significant.[7] There is also greater variation within each subsector than between the two systems.[8]
United States
A variety of forms of school choice exist in the United States.
Vouchers
Vouchers currently exist in Wisconsin, Cleveland, Florida, and, most recently, the District of Columbia[9] and Georgia. The largest and oldest Voucher program is in Milwaukee. Started in 1990, and expanded in 1995, it currently allows no more than 15% of the district's public school enrollment to use vouchers. As of 2005 over 14,000 students use vouchers and they are nearing the 15% cap.[10] School vouchers are legally controversial in some states; in 2005 the Florida Supreme Court found that school vouchers were unconstitutional under the Florida Constitution.
In the U.S., the legal and moral precedents for vouchers may have been set by the G.I. bill, which includes a voucher program for university-level education of veterans. The G.I. bill permits veterans to take their educational benefits at religious schools, an extremely divisive issue when applied to primary and secondary schools.[citation needed]
In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002), the Supreme Court of the United States held that school vouchers could be used to pay for education in sectarian schools without violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. As a result, states are basically free to enact voucher programs that provide funding for any school of the parent's choosing.[citation needed]
The Supreme Court has not decided, however, whether states can provide vouchers for secular schools only, excluding sectarian schools. Proponents of funding for parochial schools argue that such an exclusion would violate the free exercise clause. However, in Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712 (2004), the Court held that states could exclude majors in "devotional theology" from an otherwise generally available college scholarship. The Court has not indicated, however, whether this holding extends to the public school context, and it may well be limited to the context of individuals training to enter the ministry.[citation needed]
Tuition tax credits
Tuition tax credit programs currently exist in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and recently Georgia. Representative David Casas was responsible for passing the Georgia version of the school choice legislation.[11] Arizona has probably the most well known and fastest growing tax credit program. In the Arizona School Tuition Organization Tax Credit program individuals can deduct up to $500 and couples filing joint returns can deduct up to $1000. About 20,000 children received scholarships in the 2003-2004 school year. And, since the program has started in 1998, over 77,000 scholarships have been granted.[9]
Charter schools
The majority of states (and the District of Columbia) have Charter School laws. Minnesota was the first state to have a charter school law and the first charter school in the United States, City Academy, opened in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1992.[12]
Dayton, Ohio has between 22–26% of all children in Charter Schools.[13] This is the highest percentage in the nation. Other hotbeds for Charter Schools are Kansas City (24%), Washington, D.C. (20-24%) and the State of Arizona. Almost 1 in 4 public schools are Charter Schools in Arizona and about 8% of total enrollment.
Charter Schools can also come in the form of Cyber Charters. Cyber charter schools deliver the majority of their instruction over the internet instead of in a school building. And, like charter schools, they are public schools, but free of many of the rules and regulations that public schools must follow.
Magnet schools
Magnet schools are public schools that often have a specialized function like science, technology or art. These magnet schools, unlike charter schools, are not open to all children. Much like many private schools, the students must test into the school.
Home schooling
The laws relevant to homeschooling differ between US states. In some states the parent simply needs to notify the state that the child will be educated at home. In other states the parents are not free to educate at home unless at least one parent is a certified teacher and yearly progress reports are reviewed by the state. Such laws are not always enforced however. According to the Federal Government, about 1.1 million children were Home Educated in 2003.[14]
College
The United States has school choice at the university level. College students can get subsidized tuition by attending any public college or university within their state of residence. Furthermore, the U.S. federal government provides tuition assistance for both public and private colleges via the G.I. Bill and federally guaranteed student loans.
See also
- Calfee School Guide
- Daniel E. Witte
- Milton Friedman
References
- ^ "12 million languish in failing public schools, report says". The Washington Times. 2004-08-29. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ "OIDEL - A Presentation" (Portable Document Format). Organisation Internationale pour le Droit à l'Education et la Liberté d'Enseignement. pp. 1–2. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
- ^ Schultze, Steve (1995-03-14). "Expanding choice may cost more, hurt poor". The Milwaukee Journal. Retrieved 2008-08-27. [dead link]
- ^ Betts, Julian R. (2005). Getting Choice Right. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 0815753314.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ "Critical Issue: NCLB Option—Choosing to Change Schools". North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. 2003. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ a b c "Free to choose, and learn". The Economist. 2007-05-03. Retrieved 2010-11-29.
- ^ McEwan, Patrick J. (Fall 2000). "The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Private Schools in Chile's Voucher System". Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. 22 (3): 213–239. doi:10.3102/01623737022003213.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Mizala, Alejandra (2000). Determinación de Factores Explicativos de los Resultados Escolares en Educación Media en Chile. Economy Series No. 85. Centre for Applied Economics, Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Chile.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b Kafer, Krista (2005-04-25). "Choices in Education: 2005 Progress Report". The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ "School Choice - Wisconsin". The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2007_08/sum/hb1133.htm
- ^ "Clinton touts success of public charter schools". CNN. 2000-05-04. Retrieved 2008-08-27. [dead link]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Elliotwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
nces.ed.govwas invoked but never defined (see the help page).