OP-ED: The Illusion of “School Choice”

In a letter last week, Mr. Slade made a few points about spending that he sees as potentially wasteful. While he listed a handful of topics, I would like to address the one with which I am the most familiar: education.

I would like to begin by saying that Mr. Slade was a regular customer of mine when I worked at the golf club and is someone for whom I have the utmost respect. We had political conversations on several occasions that I enjoyed taking part in. With that said, I believe there are some issues on which he is misinformed. As a public school employee my intent is for this to be an apolitical examination of facts.

One thing I would like to clarify right away is that private and charter schools are not one in the same. Private schools are independent, self funded institutions that have their own admissions process, curriculum and expectations. These schools are subject to very little oversight or regulation by the government and as such are not required to provide things like free/reduced lunches, social services for students or even credentialed teachers. Public schools are required by law to offer these services (and many more) which is part of why they are increasingly expensive to run.

Charter schools, on the other hand, ARE publicly funded but operate in a legal grey area where they are still free to utilize their own curriculum and cap the number of students that may attend. Public schools may not do this either. If a student lives in our district we are legally obligated to provide them with an education.

What these two systems DO have in common is that they are selective in who attends them. Private schools are more forthright in their selection process and are free to take only the best students (or in some cases, athletes) that apply. Charter schools “select” students in a more de facto manner: the lottery system that is used to select who attends is long and involved which results in more families of means or who value education putting in the time and effort to ensure that their students can make that move.

It is no wonder then that people who choose to cherry pick test scores can easily find private and charter schools that are outscoring public schools; these schools are only enrolling top students who would have outscored their peers in any educational setting!

Despite this, privatization of education is not the end all be all solution. If you don’t believe me, check standardized testing scores for nearby charter schools (they are publicly available online) and you will find that many are only achieving 50-55% proficiency. Hardly enough to surpass those “3rd world countries” like Finland, Japan, Canada or Australia that we currently rank behind. I could go on about the flaws with using testing data to compare different educational systems globally, but I’ll save that for another time.

Disclaimer: These thoughts are my own and I am in no way speaking on behalf of RDUSD or any other agency.

Disclaimer: The views and comments expressed are those of the writers of the Letters to the Editor and the OP-ED’s and not the Beacon Newspaper.

Want to voice your opinion? Send OP-ED submissions to: riovistabeacon@gmail.com