Public School Choice

Commentary: Stop politicizing a personal school choice

Andrew Campanella January 28, 2020

Andrew Campanella

National School Choice Week president Andrew Campanella at an education choice event earlier this month in New York City held as a precursor to the annual celebration

Editor’s note: National School Choice Week, held every January, shines a spotlight on effective education options for children including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies and homeschooling. NSCW president Andrew Campanella, whose latest book, “The School Choice Roadmap: 7 Steps to Finding the Right School for Your Child” published Jan. 21, shares his thoughts on how school choice cannot and should not be contained within a political ideology.

If you watch how cable news talks about education – in the rare case that it does so – you likely think school choice is a hot-button political issue. This has more to do with the way the media cover stories than with school choice itself.

School choice isn’t a predictable, one-sided political statement; it’s a prudential decision people make every single day.

This year, during National School Choice Week, let’s remember that parents are making educational choices for their kids every day. Those choices aren’t based on political premeditation or activism; they are based on work schedules, life goals and personal needs. These choices aren’t easily clumped together under the category of vouchers or charter schools. They span every iteration of family situation.

Imagine the Smith family moves to Miami, Florida, evaluates the different schools available to them, and chooses to enroll their daughter in the nearest neighborhood public school. That is, quite literally, a school choice, and it may be the perfect choice for the Smiths.

Now maybe the Owens family moves into the same neighborhood in Miami and chooses to use intra-district open enrollment so their son can attend a nearby public school known for its engineering program. Again, that is a school choice.

Perhaps the Delgado family moves in one door down from the Smith family and uses their district’s magnet option for their kids to attend a school focused on the performing arts. That, too, is a school choice.

These three different school choices, all in the realm of free, public education, could each be prompted by unique, personal circumstances. Maybe it’s a medical need, a safety concern, or a learning style that is not being met. Whatever it is, at heart, parents are motivated by the personal needs of their learner and the health of their family unit.

That’s not politics, that’s personal.

Traditional public schools. Private schools. Public magnet schools. Public charter schools. Homeschooling. Online schools. These are all school choices, and the result is that there are more choices and options available for families today than at any other time in history, with most of those choices being completely free for families to access.

The point is, school choice is practiced in so many ways. Of course, like all personal decisions, school choice intersects with the public sphere and cannot be thought of in total isolation. But it remains first and foremost a personal decision that every family makes for itself. Recognizing that is the best and most respectful way to enter the dialogue.

Politicizing a personal decision isn’t going to improve discussions on school funding, quality schools, and what the future of education should look like. Clickbait is fun, cancel culture gripping, and it’s all too easy to wade into reductionist attitudes about school choice and a sea of other issues. But we can do better.

Families are choosing schools all the time. And the more intentional and invested they are in doing so the better. During National School Choice Week, let’s acknowledge the diverse ways that school choice is really practiced rather than dismissing the words to just one or two segments.

Let’s not politicize the personal decisions parents make in pursuit of their children’s happiness.

January 28, 2020 0 comment

Charter Schools Customization Demographic Research Education Choice Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Gardiner Scholarship Homeschooling Magnet Schools News Private School Scholarships Public School Choice School Choice Tax Credit Scholarships

Charter schools continue to rule Florida’s education choice landscape

Patrick R. Gibbons January 27, 2020

Patrick R. Gibbons

Started in 2011, National School Choice Week has grown into the world’s largest celebration of opportunity in education. Over the past decade, more than 131,000 NSCW events have been planned across the country.

As the 10^th annual National School Choice Week celebration kicks off, Step Up For Students unveils its 11^th annual “Changing Landscapes” infographic, a document that explores student enrollment in public and private school choice options statewide for the 2018-19 school year.

Some key findings:

· 48.2 percent of preK-12 students attend a school of choice, up from 47.5 percent last year

· 40.7 percent of K-12 students are utilizing a publicly funded school choice option

· The Gardiner Scholarship program saw a 35 percent increase from 10,258 to 13,884 students

Retaining the top spot for the second year in a row as the most popular school choice option are charter schools, with 309,730 students, representing a 6.1 percent increase. For the first time, charters have exceeded the 300,000-student mark.

District-run choice options such as open enrollment, which increased by 4.1 percent, and magnet schools are in second and third place, respectively, with 273,377 and 248,199 students each.

The Gardiner Scholarship program for children with unique abilities, which allows students to complete private school or home education programs, grew by 35 percent. Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship program declined 3.7 percent between 2017-18 and 2018-19 following an all-time record high the previous year, while the McKay Scholarship program declined by 1.1 percent.

Despite a slight decline in the number of students using private scholarship programs, the number of private pay private school students grew by 12,257 students, or 5.4 percent.

Data for Florida’s largest voucher program, Voluntary Prekindergarten, was unavailable for the 2018-19 school year; the document reflects the latest data available from the 2017-18 school year.

As in past years, the Changing Landscapes document attempts to remove duplicate student counts when possible. For example, while the Florida Department of Education reported 313,586 students enrolled in charter schools, that figure includes 1,413 students enrolled in the Florida Atlantic University Lab Schools District and 2,443 students at the Florida State University School District. The document’s authors wished to include all university-affiliated lab and charter schools as one option and removed those students from the charter school count.

Additionally, the Department completed a custom data request to remove the number of students enrolled in what it categorizes as Career and Professional Academies at district-run public schools who already were counted as being enrolled in other types of public schools of choice.

This year, one minor tweak was made in the Changing Landscapes methodology. Since the Gardiner Scholarship allows for students to attend private schools or home education programs, the number of students enrolled in each was based on spending data. This allowed for the removal of duplicates already counted in home education or private school enrollment.

Overall, preK-12 student population statewide increased by 1.8 percent in 2018-19.

To compare the 2018-19 Changing Landscapes document to the 2017-18 document, click here.

January 27, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Customization Education Choice Education Polling Featured Parental Choice Public School Choice School Choice

Ahead of National School Choice Week, much to celebrate but still more to achieve

Matthew Ladner January 20, 2020

Matthew Ladner

National School Choice Week, set for Jan. 26-Feb. 1, is a time to celebrate the progress made in the expansion of schooling options for families. Within the lifetime of this author and many of you readers, only parents who could afford to strategically purchase real estate or pay for private school tuition on top of their district taxes could exercise choice in education.

We’ve come a long way from that system. For instance, in Florida, hundreds of thousands of students make use of various forms of choice. Of Florida’s 3.4 million preK-12 students, 47 percent attended a school of their choice during the 2017-18 school year.

Of that number, more than 292,000 attended charter schools, nearly 263,000 took advantage of open enrollment options, and more than 226,000 found seats in choice and magnet programs within public school districts. Another 87,591 participated in home education programs and 159,297 took advantage of career and technical education public high schools.

Florida families will have much to celebrate next week, but there’s still much more to do.

Families are best served by a set of options both diverse in educational approach and reasonably proximate to the family. In Florida, there are 1,818 schools serving low-income students through scholarships, 1,660 district magnet programs and 655 charter schools. Meanwhile, the ability for families to choose district schools other than their assigned school has improved.

That’s a good start, but there’s a catch: Many of these schools have students on waitlists. While the number of proximate “good fit” schools is a blessing, sitting on the waitlist for a proximate “good fit” school feels like a curse. The ability to scale high-demand schools is crucial.

Here are the results of an EdChoice poll that queried parents’ schooling preferences by type. The results show that while more than eight in 10 American students attend public district schools, only about three of 10 parents said they prefer a district school.

EdChoice and others have asked polling questions like this one by sector. In this example, approximately four times as many people preferred private and charter schools as actually attend those schools. This result indicates a certain level of dissatisfaction with district schools in the abstract, but that does not mean that in a truly demand-driven system, parents would lead a mass exodus from district schools.

The bottom bar of the graph shows that neither charter nor private schools have anything like the capacity to take a mass exodus. Adding school supply inevitably represents an incremental endeavor.

A rich empirical literature in Florida and elsewhere indicates that district schools show improved performance in the face of competition. Districts also can develop specialized schools focused on high-demand offerings. Choice therefore represents a good strife rather than a dire threat to districts.

While all families want their children to have a safe school that will equip them with the knowledge and habits necessary for success in life, there are a great many paths up that mountain. The most important mix of school offerings is not by sector but rather by focus. While there is a limited number of school sectors, there is a great desire for variety.

Families are diverse in their educational desires, with some preferring an arts focus and others preferring a STEM focus. Many families want classical education, and America has a variety of culturally differentiated schools. Many families need a second-chance school that specializes in helping students who have fallen behind catch up, others desire programs and schools with deep experience in helping students with disabilities.

Many families desire industry training, but others want their kids to get a perfect score on their college entrance exam. Arizona has charter schools focused on equestrianism that do quite well academically. (Your author’s sisters would have given their two front teeth to attend one of these schools.)

It is an act of hubris and folly to attempt to be all things to everyone within a single school. The best-case scenario would be to become the jack of some trades and the master of some.

Education, of course, also happens outside of “school,” and at this point Florida is close to the only state to recognize this, although only in a very modest way. Nevertheless, innovators are developing the technology and practices needed to allow students to engage in multi-vendor education.

There will be thousands of celebrations next week, which are needed and appropriate. But then we’ll have to roll up our sleeves and get back to work. The education freedom movement has come a long way, but we have a good long way yet to go.

January 20, 2020 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Magnet Schools Public School Choice School Choice

District interests keep magnets stuck in the cupboard under the staircase

Matthew Ladner January 8, 2020

Matthew Ladner

Well-organized special interests vigorously oppose allowing publicly-funded education to occur outside the control of local school districts. If families have a desire for more options, the refrain often goes, districts can satisfy that demand with magnet schools.

Magnet schools, utilized to lower racial segregation and typically featuring a specialized curriculum to attract enrollment without regard to attendance zones, got a running start on other forms of education choice. The first magnet debuted in 1965, while the first charter didn’t launch until the early 1990s.

At the turn of this century, unmet demand for school options found a release in the form of private choice and charter school programs. In 2000, these programs had not yet reached the ripe old age of 10 anywhere, and they were entirely absent in most states.

Nevertheless, the presence of choice options outside of districts seemed to spur the creation of additional magnet opportunities within districts; between 2000 and 2012, the number of magnet students more than doubled. Since then, however, magnet enrollment has plateaued. Why might that be the case?

If you work for a district school, your funding ultimately depends upon the number of students enrolled. Whether students attend charter schools, private schools, are homeschooled, use open enrollment to attend a different district school or move away, the result is fewer students in a particular district, and thus, less funding. Non-magnet district schools, thus, have an incumbent interest in minimizing choice-including of the magnet variety.

Incumbent interests may tolerate a certain amount of competition for students from district magnet schools if facing external pressure. External pressure can come from parents or schooling options outside the district, including other districts if they allow open enrollment. Incumbents ultimately have an incentive to keep magnet schools contained rather than allowing them to grow to meet parental demand.

Districts do not have the same ability to veto new charter schools, however, and shortly after the plateau in magnet enrollment in 2012, national charter enrollment exceeded that of magnet schools despite the 26-year magnet head start. The line-crossing seems all the more impressive considering the struggle that charters have in finding facilities.

To clarify the political impediments, consider what very well may be the most impressive public school in Arizona: University High. This magnet school in the Tucson Unified School District serves a majority minority student body and ranked No. 15 nationally in U.S. News and World Report rankings. University High has a waitlist, while Tucson Unified has needs-enrollment and an abundance of vacant space caused by a combination of housing decisions, open enrollment, charters and overbuilding of school space during the pre-Great Recession boom.

Any rational actor might think that Tucson Unified would give it to the charter competition with both barrels by replicating University High repeatedly. Ooops … There we go again, bringing logic to a political fight.

Instead, University High is kept contained. Not only has Tucson Unified failed to replicate University High, it literally keeps it in the basement of another school. Meanwhile, adjacent districts continue to bring in students zoned for Tucson Unified, and charters keep growing their enrollments and waitlists. While a “protect the incumbents” mindset may seem to be rational in the short term, it serves districts poorly in the long term. In the late 1980s, more than 10 percent of Arizona students attended Tucson Unified schools. By 2016, that percentage had fallen to 4 percent.

Some districts, however, have been much more forward looking. One has been growing right in Tucson’s neighborhood. (More on that to come.)

The takeaway for now: Districts keep high-demand charters trapped in broom closets and basements for entirely predictable political reasons centering on incumbent political interests. You can buy a dog and have it sit on your lap and purr in an adorable fashion, but it’s not what you should expect to happen. Sadly, you shouldn’t expect districts to scale high-demand options in the current governance/incentive structures, either.

January 8, 2020 0 comment

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Beat them at their own game: Miami-Dade superintendent Alberto Carvalho, podcastED

Ron Matus January 3, 2020

Ron Matus

Editor’s note: During this holiday season, redefinED has published our best articles of 2019 – those features and commentaries that deserve a second look. This podcast from Step Up For Students’ director for policy and public affairs Ron Matus features a public school superintendent who understands the value of education choice. The post originally published Oct. 23.

You can be forgiven for thinking, given the vivid “tsunami of choice” metaphor used by Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, that America’s fifth-biggest school district saw the rapid expansion of charter schools and private school choice a decade ago and concluded, If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

But listen to Carvalho for a few minutes and you might arrive at a different take – that Miami-Dade sized up the forces of choice and customization re-shaping public education and decided they’d beat competing sectors at their own game.

“I think it would be fair to say that I am by nature a reasonably competitive guy, and my team is as well,” Carvalho told me in a recorded interview in April, as I was putting together a paper on Miami-Dade for the Education Cities conference at Harvard. “But I can also tell you that we stopped trying to out compete others long ago. And now we’re in a phase of work where really we’re trying to outperform ourselves.”

“It really was a transition,” Carvalho continued. “We have seen the growth of the charter school movement in our community. But we’ve seen an even more aggressive … growth of public school choices within the previously-known-as traditional schools in Miami-Dade. So yes, I would credit in part our success, and the explosive nature of choice programs in our system, to, at least in part, to competition. But it was strategic competition. It’s not just to win the gold medal in anything. It was actually competition to deliver choice at much higher levels, being strategic in the deployment of choice programs, by analyzing their existence by zip code, across the district, and filling in the gaps.”

We at redefinED converted the interview into a podcast to complement the paper on Miami-Dade, which Education Next published this week. Among other points Carvalho makes about educational choice:

Resistance is futile. “We recognized … that the choice tsunami was upon us. And I was not going to do what lot of my colleagues did. Which is, ‘Let’s hope and pray it doesn’t hit us. Or let’s just allow this to go through. Like all things, this is a fad that will go away.’ … I could anticipate the policy shift in the state of Florida and across the country. And we were right. It has, quite frankly, materialized exactly as we predicted. But rather than being a spectator, or a victim of it, we were an active participant in it.“

More choice, better outcomes. “It’s not disputable that students that are enrolled in these choice programs usually perform academically better than those who are not. I think we ought to celebrate that. But the celebration should not last very long. We ought to replicate the success and continue to amplify through equitable access to the same opportunity that’s now being granted to 70 percent of our kids, but needs to be granted to the rest of them.”

You ain’t seen nothing yet. “Ten to 20 years from now, how will we be teaching kids in America? In Miami-Dade? … The most honest answer to that question is, we don’t know. And I say that because I think the mode and model of educational work will be significantly different from anything we know and understand today, as a result of three powerful forces: digitization, automation and artificial intelligence. You put those three forces together and you have to anticipate a dramatic shift, perhaps the most powerful shift we’ve seen in education in the history of mankind.”

Enjoy the podcast, and read last week’s redefinED post about Carvalho here.

January 3, 2020 1 comment