School Choice Is Closed: Fill & Download for Free

Yes!Although I am very skeptical that it would ever really happen, particularly where I live, in solidly blue Chicago. The powers that be here are just too intransigent when it comes to sweeping educational reforms that don’t include massive wealth redistribution and government-as-parent/schools-as-quasi-orphanages schemes.Besides that, the fact that Trump is the one proposing this pretty much dooms it where I live.Still, it’s a fun thing to think about, kind of like a moon colony. Maybe one day, but not in my lifetime.I’ve written several answers on the benefits of being pro-choice. Pro-school-choice that is. Here are the facts where I live:Public schools are over-crowded, under-performing, and spending more per student than private schools in the city.Private schools are closing due to low enrollment, but the ones that still exist get much better results at a lower cost per student than the public schools.Every single day, poor students in Chicago walk past amazing private schools like the one where I work, where there are plenty of extra seats, and where the tuition is only about $8,000 annually… on their way to overcrowded public schools, which get worse results, for double the price.Under the current system, more affluent parents already have a choice. They can choose to move to a better school district, or send their children to private schools. A lack of school choice options only hurts the people who could benefit from it the most: the poor. Not only does it hurt them by denying them the right to choose where to send their children to school, but the flight of monied citizens from cities with bad schools only makes all city services, including schools, that much worse for those who are left behind.Here are some arguments against school choice, and why I think they are wrong:Private schools often aren’t unionized, while most public schools are. School choice is a form of union busting.I say: So? Schools aren’t there to support unions, they’re there to educate students.Not every community has alternative schools to choose from.I say: They lack choices now because there is no market for choices when people can’t afford the choice. Allowing people to move their tax dollars to the school of their choice will create a market. Someone will take advantage of that market. Yes, some communities might not have choices still, but most will. School choice initiatives would give more people the same choices that the wealthy already have.Private schools can say no to students. The best students will leave the public schools, and the worst students will be left behind, making public schools even worse.I say: This is the equivalent of poking holes in a life raft full of people because there isn’t enough room on it for you too. Will some students get left behind? Yes. Are a lot of students getting left behind by a failed public education system now? Yes. Will school choice at least give most students a fighting chance of not being completely failed by the system? Yes.Taxpayer funding could be spent on religious-based schools and education.I say: There’s an easy way around that… give tax breaks to parents at a 1:1 ratio for money spent on private school tuition. The government isn’t funding the private school then, it’s just not taking the money from the parents in the first place.

Why is the left so strongly opposed to school choice?Because school choice means highly funded private schools, which basically means that you can buy better education, which then again means that, since better education is the key to economical success, more economical success can be bought by the already economically successful, leading to the too large gap between the poor and the rich getting even larger.To close that gap we need equal education opportunities for everyone, not the better for the rich and what can be financed from the breadcrumbs remaining for everyone else. And school choice is the exact opposite of that.

Because the USA is obsessed with the philosophy “Fuck you, I’ve got mine”.I have spent the past 30 years developing and selling software to private schools, public K-12 schools, school districts, and even entire countries. I am intimately familiar with the operation of schools.In the USA, public schools are funded on a local basis, which is to say that property taxes are a primary component of school funding. The primary result of this is that the schools in wealthy areas of the country are better-funded on a per-pupil basis than the schools in poorer areas of the country.Education is also the responsibility of the state, not federal, government. Again, the net result of this is that on average, wealthy states have better schools than less-wealthy states. Particularly at the low end, states with low GDP also have poor schools.Schools in the USA are also organized into “districts”. These are typically organized according to political boundaries, e.g. town or county. School taxes are collected on that basis.The net result of all of this is that since “your” taxes fund “your” school district, and you typically cannot send your child to a school which is outside the boundary of the district in which you pay taxes. In some states you can, but you will typically need to pay twice, once in your home district and once in the district your child attends.But wait! There’s more! Each school within a district also has a “catchment area”, which is to say a geographic area it draws students from. Depending on the rules set by your district, you may have no choice but to send students to the schools which your home is in the catchment area of.So if you live in a shitty area of town, within a shitty school district? Or you live in an OK school district but the school in your catchment area is crap? Tough luck. Sucks to be you. You still have to send your child to that school. This is the real tragedy of the American system: failing schools that stay open year after year, because parents are forced to send their children to those schools.And by the way, the commonly-promoted “school choice” or “charter school” in the USA is not, in any meaningful way, actual school choice. You are typically limited to a charter schools in your district, and again typically these schools are for-profit schools which are able to lower operating costs by hiring non-unionized teachers. Now, trust me, I’m not against either school choice or charter schools, but these are nowhere near actual school choice.We can contrast this with private schools in the USA. Private schools run completely independently of the public school system. Any child may apply to any private school, although each private school may have specific entrance requirements (e.g. a music school, a sports school, and so on). Since parents provide essentially 100% of the funding, they have a substantial input into the school’s management. But of course, you need to be able to afford to pay for private schools.So, by way of comparison, and a system I know fairly well, is New Zealand.In New Zealand, every school is essentially what we in North America would think of as a private school. The schools are completely independent, and may use whatever teaching methods they wish. There are requirements that each school must take students from their catchment area, but that’s it. If you want your child to attend a different school, that is entirely your choice. You can apply to that school, regardless of where it is located. And each school, by law, has a powerful parent council.Now, this does mean that good schools are very popular, and it might be difficult to get in. But no problem, successful schools (like any business) will open second or third locations, to service more customers.And the opposite happens as well: If a school does poorly, parents pull their kids out, and that school will close.Now, here’s the really cool part: no matter what school you choose for your child, the government pays the tuition. That comes out of national taxes, so this happens whether you live in a rich area of the country or a poor area of the country.It’s called School Choice, and it’s been in place for almost 30 years. There are some minor variances on what is paid to each school, with the schools in struggling areas getting a bit more money (not less!). And yes, it can be very hard to get in to some of the popular schools. But fundamentally, New Zealand makes it legal and free for your child to apply to any school in the country, and if they are accepted they can attend at no direct cost to the parent.It’s a pretty amazing system. And that’s true school choice.The only similar system I know of in the USA is Boston Public School, which allows any student living in the district to attend any school in BPS. But there are no similar systems at the state level, and certainly not at the national level.