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Public school choice alone isn’t enough

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On May 15, 2012 in Parental Choice, School Boards, School Choice

Over at the Gradebook (the Tampa Bay Times education blog) this morning, another example of why public school choice alone isn’t enough:

Forty-two percent of the 2,200 parents in the Pasco County School District who applied to switch schools this fall were denied, the Gradebook reports, often because there wasn’t enough room. (Florida’s voter-approved class-size restrictions contributed to the complications.) The blog post notes the appeals process is ongoing so “a few more families might win their preferred school seats.”

That still leaves a whole bunch frustrated – and unnecessarily so.

This happens far too often. In Florida alone right now, there are thousands of upset parents in Pinellas, Palm Beach and other major school districts because they failed to get their kids into the public schools they wanted. In Hartford, Conn., 10,000 kids lost the public school lottery a few weeks ago.

As we’ve written before, school districts must become more nimble in responding to parents. At the same time, expanding choice options to include private schools and charter schools can help, too. The more that chance and lotteries can be taken out of the process, the better.

The end result will be more parents invested in their schools – and more kids in the learning environments that work better for them.

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A new arena for school choice to help at-risk kids

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On April 30, 2012 in General, School Boards, School Choice

Editor’s note: School choice supporters see expansion of choice as especially promising for at-risk students. In this guest post, Alan Bonsteel, president of California Parents for Educational Choice, suggests they turn their attention to an under-the-radar, public-school sector that doesn’t have much success with the students who struggle the most.

The nation’s continuation schools are probably the most dysfunctional of our public schools, and yet the large majority of parents, taxpayers and voters – and even many education researchers – are unaware of their existence.

As a 30-year veteran of the school choice wars in California, I am familiar with how we handle this issue in our state. But data on the rest of the nation is extremely hard to find.

In California, 56 of our 58 counties run what we call county offices of education. The two exceptions occur in counties in which there is only a single city.

These county offices run “continuation” schools for students who are floundering in traditional public schools, often because they have behavioral problems. They run a different brand of continuation schools for students incarcerated in the juvenile justice system (and who initially arrive at the schools in the backs of police cars). They operate schools for kids with learning disabilities. They also teach adult high school dropouts who are returning to complete their high school education.

Surveys done by our organization, California Parents for Educational Choice, show only about 25 percent of adults in California are aware of the existence of the county offices. With such weak oversight by voters, it is hardly surprising that the quality here is abysmal. Continue Reading →

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Florida school board election may be barometer for school choice

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On April 17, 2012 in Parental Choice, School Boards, School Choice

Florida has long given folks nationwide good reason to pay attention to school choice happenings at the state level. Now comes a compelling story at the local level.

Glen Gilzean, 31, is seeking a school board seat to help lead the 101,000-student Pinellas County school district.  He’s a former staffer with the state education department; an education entrepreneur whose business helps low income kids; an energetic guy with a solid grasp of education issues. He also happens to openly support school choice options like vouchers and tax credit scholarships.

That support prompted headlines after Florida Gov. Rick Scott appointed Gilzean to the District 7 seat in January. And it was mentioned again when Gilzean announced last week that he’s running to hold on to the seat. It should be kept in perspective.

District 7 has more black students than any other school board district in Pinellas. And as I’ve written before (and will continue to do so), black students in Pinellas score lower in reading and math than black students in any major school system in Florida. The trend lines are upsetting and baffling and don’t get the attention they deserve. They have also spurred growing numbers of parents in Pinellas to embrace expanded school choice options.

Gilzean’s support for choice may put him more in synch with the community pulse than candidates who reject such options. But he’s not a Johnny-one-note. Like many choice supporters, he sees choice as another tool to help kids, not as a silver bullet and not as an excuse to let traditional public schools flounder.

The election is Aug. 14. It will be fascinating to see if school choice becomes an issue in coming months – and, if so, how it’s portrayed and how voters respond. We know choice in Florida has strong support at the state level. The unique election in Pinellas may give us clues about how it’s viewed on the ground.

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Duval County’s critics should give school choice a chance

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On April 13, 2012 in Charter Schools, Education reporting, General, School Boards

For whatever reason, Duval County is a hotspot in Florida for criticism about school choice options for low-income students, including, most recently, a biting newspaper column about charter schools. The distinction is odd and disappointing because, for whatever reason, low-income students do particularly poorly there.

Low-income students in the Duval school district, which corresponds with the city of Jacksonville, trail more affluent classmates by double-digit percentage points when it comes to passing the state’s standardized math and reading tests. That’s not unusual. But they also trail other low-income students. When the results for low-income students in Florida’s 12 biggest school districts are compared, Duval ranks last in both subjects. (The 2010 figures showed 47 percent of Duval’s low-income kids reading at grade level or above, while 52 percent were doing math at grade level or above.)

This is not meant to disparage the hard work and dedication of public school leaders in Duval. But it does call into question the certitude with which they reject learning options that could help. Andy Ford, the president of the state teachers union, is a former union president in Duval – and definitely not a fan of vouchers or tax credit scholarships for low-income kids. Neither is influential Duval school board member W.C. Gentry or Save Duval Schools, one of the state’s most organized and media-savvy parent groups. From public hearings to the state Capitol to letters to the editor, they’ve relentlessly stayed on message: School choice is bad, a fraud, a conservative plot to enrich greedy corporations.

Expanded school choice “really takes us back to the haves and have-nots,” Gentry said in a Dec. 2010 radio interview. “The wealthy, the rich, the people in the know – they will figure it out. The poor, the disenfranchised, those who do not have that kind of support system – they will fall into the cracks and we will further enhance the disparity we now have in this city and this state between the haves and have-nots.” Continue Reading →

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Parents and schools both deserve scrutiny

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On March 27, 2012 in Achievement Gap, Customization, Education reporting, General, Parent empowerment, School Boards

It’s a common refrain in ed reform debates: If only more parents would do the right thing, schools would be a lot easier to fix. Especially, it seems, black parents.

Whenever I wrote a newspaper story about struggling black students, it was guaranteed to make the web site’s “most commented” list. Scores of angry people would write in to berate and belittle black parents, often in blatantly racist terms. Bill Cosby makes similarly hard-line arguments in a tough-love kind of way. So do some media personalities, like nationally syndicated columnist Bill Maxwell.

In his column last Sunday, Maxwell takes on a faith-based group in Pinellas County, Florida called FAST, which stands for Faith and Action for Strength Together. FAST recently made headlines for urging the Pinellas County School Board to do something about abysmal reading scores in 20 high-poverty schools, many of them with predominantly black student populations. In a public meeting, 3,000 members of the group called on the board to adopt a “direct instruction” approach.

As he has done before, Maxwell called for more accountability from black parents. He suggested it was a waste of time to focus on what schools may or may not be doing. He said the district’s web site had plenty of good tips.

Maxwell is right to stress how much parents matter. Nobody in their right mind disagrees. But like many things in education, this isn’t a case of either-or. Continue Reading →

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A suburban school district that isn’t afraid of reform, choice

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On March 14, 2012 in General, Parental Choice, School Boards

Over at the Education Next blog, Rick Hess has an interview with Liz Fagen, the superintendent of Douglas County schools in Colorado. We’ve written about Douglas County before because it’s the district where, amazingly enough, the school board voted in a voucher program last year (though it’s now tied up in court). The Hess interview is worth a read not only because it points out other ways Douglas County is pushing the envelope, but because of the contrast Fagen offers to other suburban superintendents.

Douglas isn’t too different from, say, Seminole County in Florida. Douglas is a well-to-do district on the outskirts of Denver. Seminole is an affluent district outside Orlando. Both have about 60,000 students. Both have good reputations. Both have plenty of satisfied parents.

But when it comes to attitudes about school choice, the districts are night and day. Continue Reading →

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Accountability 2.0 requires balance between regulations and choice

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On January 5, 2012 in General, School Boards, School Choice, Testing and Accountability

Similar to food, medicine, and housing, accountability in public education is a balance of government regulations and customer choice, and finding the proper balance is increasingly important as parental choice becomes more prevalent. Generally regulations and choice are inversely related such that as one increases the other decreases.

When I was growing up we had only one choice for phone service, which meant our phone company was highly regulated. Government regulators determined the services we were provided and their costs, and even prohibited consumers from owning phones. This began to change in 1984 when the government broke up AT&T’s monopoly and allowed more companies to enter telecommunications. More providers led to consumers having more choices and the telecommunications industry being less regulated. Today consumers may own phones and may pick from a plethora of service and cost plans.

A similar rebalancing of regulations and consumer choice is occurring in public education. School district dominance is slowly eroding as public education expands and incorporates new providers such as charter schools, virtual schools, dual enrollment programs and private schools accepting publicly funded vouchers and scholarships.

School boards and teacher unions are resisting this transformation and arguing that overregulated district schools are unfairly having to compete with less regulated choice schools. But their solution — to require that all publicly funded schools adhere to the same regulations — ignores the consumer choice component of accountability. Choice schools should be less regulated than non-choice schools, just as telecommunications companies today are less regulated that AT&T was in 1980. If school districts want to reduce the regulatory burdens on their schools and level the regulatory playing field, they should convert them to charter schools.

The macro forces driving change throughout our society are also transforming public education. Inevitably the future of public education will include more customer choice, more diverse providers and less regulation. Therefore, public education needs a well balanced accountability system that reflects these new realities.

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Charter school autonomy continues to influence

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On November 22, 2011 in Charter Schools, General, Parental Choice, School Boards

I was encouraged to see this paragraph in a recent Indianapolis Star article about giving the Indianapolis mayor control of the local school district:

The most likely plan would include mayoral appointment of the School Board, combined with a decentralization of IPS. Schools would have an independence similar to what charter schools have, along with strict accountability to the mayor for performance.

As the parental choice movement continues to grow, pressure will build to give district schools the same management autonomy as charter schools and private schools receiving publicly funded vouchers and scholarships. Within the next 20 years or so, charter schools may be the dominant governance model in public education. If this transition occurs, school boards will stop owning and managing schools and instead become the primary regulatory body for all publicly funded education in their districts.

The big winners from this decentralization will be teachers, students and taxpayers. Teacher unions will resist since their business model assumes a centralized employer, but after a prolonged temper tantrum they’ll adjust and reinvent themselves.

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To better compete with charters, a Florida school board reexamines its magnets

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On November 11, 2011 in Charter Schools, General, School Boards, School Choice

This clip from today’s South Florida Sun Sentinel provides more evidence that Florida school districts are adapting to a more market-driven public education system:

With budget constraints and fierce competition from charter schools, the Broward School Board is taking a hard look at which magnet schools may not be drawing enough students.

Programs that aren’t popular could be changed or canned. Successful magnets, such as the district’s two Montessori schools, could be replicated or expanded.

‘Whatever’s not working, in my opinion, you don’t continue it,’ said board member Robin Bartleman.

The parental choice movement’s efforts to make public education more democratic are clearly gaining momentum.

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Broward County wants its market share back

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On November 9, 2011 in General, School Boards, School Choice

In a post yesterday, I asserted that Florida school districts are slowly adapting to a more market-driven public education system. This story in today’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel (“Broward weighs single sex schools to compete with charters, private schools”) illustrates my point.

The article notes that single-gender classrooms in charter, parochial and other private schools are popular with Broward County parents, so the Broward School Board wants to explore offering them in hopes of recruiting these parents to district schools. As Board member Robin Bartleman observed, “I think it’s a great way to bring back that market share.”

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