Does School Choice Harm Or Help US Education? | Breaking Points w/James Li
Here's a quick explainer about school choice, featuring Josh Cowen as a guest. Brief but clear. Warning-- you probably want to stay out of the comments section.
Not sure this debate will end any time soon. The two sides talk across each other. For example, at the end, Li paints a false dichotomy. He says that either you support "quality public education" (which presumably means that district schools get a monopoly with no choice whatsoever for parents) or where "quality education is a privilege for the rich". It's a false choice. For decades, many poor kids have had terrible schools with little or no choice for parents. But critics of reform seem to offer almost no answer for this criticism - other than standardized tests are bad and poverty is an unscalable obstacle to education.
But Li is incorrectly conflating the "public" aspects of funding a K-12 education for every kid with "public" operation of the school. These are not and do not need to be the same thing. Shouldn't a poor kid and his family have the right to use the allocation of public dollars for his education towards a school which will provide a quality education - even if that school isn't operated by the government ?
Let me add this. Though Greene and I disagree about a lot, I do agree with one part of his criticism of vouchers. They simply do not provide enough dollars for a poor family to choose a private school. Almost all state constitutions require the government to provide an effective education. Not sure how you meet that requirement by giving a poor family $2,000/yr where an average private school costs multiples of that ? To me, this is where charters are different because a poor family can choose to send their kids to either a district or charter school without any marginal cost to themselves. Greene and I may disagree as to whether this choice is beneficial. But at least it's real choice.
Not sure this debate will end any time soon. The two sides talk across each other. For example, at the end, Li paints a false dichotomy. He says that either you support "quality public education" (which presumably means that district schools get a monopoly with no choice whatsoever for parents) or where "quality education is a privilege for the rich". It's a false choice. For decades, many poor kids have had terrible schools with little or no choice for parents. But critics of reform seem to offer almost no answer for this criticism - other than standardized tests are bad and poverty is an unscalable obstacle to education.
ReplyDeleteBut Li is incorrectly conflating the "public" aspects of funding a K-12 education for every kid with "public" operation of the school. These are not and do not need to be the same thing. Shouldn't a poor kid and his family have the right to use the allocation of public dollars for his education towards a school which will provide a quality education - even if that school isn't operated by the government ?
Let me add this. Though Greene and I disagree about a lot, I do agree with one part of his criticism of vouchers. They simply do not provide enough dollars for a poor family to choose a private school. Almost all state constitutions require the government to provide an effective education. Not sure how you meet that requirement by giving a poor family $2,000/yr where an average private school costs multiples of that ? To me, this is where charters are different because a poor family can choose to send their kids to either a district or charter school without any marginal cost to themselves. Greene and I may disagree as to whether this choice is beneficial. But at least it's real choice.
ReplyDelete