Proponents of school choice often argue that it’s the path to a better education system. While it’s a path that works for some children, it can end up leaving others even farther behind.
School choice comes in a variety of forms: charter schools, vouchers parents can use at private schools, and traditional public school systems that don't restrict students to neighborhood schools.
The justifications for choice also vary. Some advocates, like former teachers’ union president Albert Shanker, have seen charter schools as laboratories for experimentation.
Others regard choice as a matter of social justice. Why, they ask, should wealthy parents have the option of moving to an area with good schools or paying for private schools, while their lower-income counterparts are restricted to the possibly dysfunctional school in their neighborhood?
The most committed advocates of school choice also see it as a way to improve education for all through the free market. Let schools compete for students, they argue, and eventually only the best schools will survive.
Others acknowledge that free-market competition alone won’t do the trick. But, they say, what does work is a choice-based system that incorporates governmental regulation. In D.C., for example, the Public Charter School Board subjects charter applicants to rigorous scrutiny, monitors school performance, and shuts down charters that fail to meet specified goals.
That kind of oversight generally yields better results than unfettered choice. But there are at least six problems that are inherent in any system that relies on choice.
1. Not all parents are in a position to make good choices. What if the best choice is on the other side of town, and parents have no reliable way to get their children there? What if parents need afterschool care and the best choice doesn’t provide it? And what if the best choice has a waiting list in the hundreds, as many sought-after schools do?
2. It can be hard to make good choices when there’s an abundance of options. In Washington, D.C., where I live, there are about 200 possibilities, including both charter schools and traditional public schools, all of which families can apply to through a common lottery system. While the lottery makes the application process easier, families still need to shoulder the burden of visiting schools, comparing their offerings, and making an informed decision about which are best.
Even highly educated, affluent parents can find this task challenging. For less educated families with fewer resources, it can be overwhelming. In some school districts that have embraced choice, the result has been that the choice system has largely replicated the inequities of the system it was designed to replace.
In Chicago, where there are over 130 different high schools for students to choose from, researchers have found that the highest- and lowest-achieving students sort themselves into different schools. Almost all the top students attend high-performing schools, while the weakest end up in schools that are struggling. The situation in other bastions of choice—like San Francisco, New Orleans and New York City—is similar.
Another Chicago study found that students in the poorest neighborhoods were more likely than those in wealthier neighborhoods to opt for something other than their local school. But, while most traveled to schools that were better, 15% ended up in schools that were worse. Overall, the study found, the system of choice led to a higher concentration of struggling students in the default option: the neighborhood school.
3. School closings are disruptive. When a school is shuttered—whether by regulators or by parents who have voted with their feet—families have to find someplace else to enroll their children. When children have to switch schools, especially repeatedly, their mental health and academic achievement can suffer.
4. There actually isn't a lot of real choice. Even with the abundance of apparent choice, most schools offer pretty much the same kind of education, particularly at the elementary level: a narrow curriculum that is believed to be the way to boost reading and math scores. That’s true in both the charter and traditional public school sectors. The failure to teach children anything substantive, beginning in the earliest grades, ends up privileging the students who are able to acquire more knowledge outside of school—usually, the already-privileged children of educated families.
5. Not everyone puts their own kids' interests first. A system of choice assumes that the collective exercise of rational self-interest will ultimately benefit everyone. But for a variety of reasons, some parents and students feel loyal even to a school that is struggling. And not all parents are willing to put their own kids' interests ahead of others'.
Andrea Tucker is a D.C. parent whose three children attend a neighborhood elementary school where, she says, the curriculum consists almost entirely of reading and math. She and other parents at the school have appealed repeatedly to the authorities for a broader curriculum, she told me, but to no avail. Tucker is aware that at some other D.C. public schools, both charter and traditional, students are engaging in the kinds of science and social studies projects that her own kids are being denied.
I asked Tucker if she had thought of switching her children to one of those other schools. Yes, she said, she’d thought about it. But, she told me, she doesn’t want to just leave behind the other kids at the school where her children are currently enrolled. She wants to improve their education too.
Some might characterize Tucker’s decision as public-spirited—a living example of the principle enshrined in the landmark federal law called No Child Left Behind. But some school choice theorists might consider it irrational.
6. The sins of the parents are visited upon their children. However they view Tucker’s specific case, those who argue that school choice will save us inevitably need to confront the question of what to do about parents whose choices they consider ill-advised. For most, the answer seems to be that there’s a limit to what government can do: if people make bad choices, they’ll suffer the consequences.
But do children need to suffer the consequences of their parents’ choices, whatever they may be? Or does society have an obligation to ensure, as much as possible, that all children have access to a meaningful education?
School choice has its place. It can—at least theoretically—foster the kind of innovation that the traditional public school bureaucracy tends to stifle. And it can provide an escape route for some children in neighborhoods with dysfunctional schools. But it can’t be counted on to improve education for all children, especially the most vulnerable.