Choice shows promise

A January article by John Stossel, author of Stupid in America, discusses places where school choice is the typical mode of public education—and how well it works. I’ll pull a few quotes from the article:

“Last week, Florida's supreme court ruled that public money can't be spent on private schools because the state constitution commands the funding of only "uniform . . . high-quality" schools. How absurd. As if government schools are uniformly high quality. Or even mostly decent.

Apparently competition, which made even the Postal Service improve, is unconstitutional when it comes to public education in Florida.

Remember when the Postal Service said it couldn't get it there overnight? Then companies like FedEx were allowed to compete. Private enterprise got it there absolutely, positively overnight. Now even the Post Office guarantees overnight delivery sometimes. Competition works.”

It’s safe to say that with one million children dropping out, there is a need for sweeping change and improvement. The logical conclusion that competition will help students is powerful, but I think even more powerful is the fact that where choice is in effect, students succeed.

“For "Stupid in America," a special report ABC will air Friday, we gave identical tests to high school students in New Jersey and Belgium. The Belgians trounced the Americans. We didn't pick smart kids in Europe and dumb kids in the United States. The American students attend an above-average school in New Jersey, and New Jersey kids' test scores are above average for America. "It has to be something with the school," said a New Jersey student, "'cause I don't think we're stupider."

She was right: It's the schools. At age 10, students from 25 countries take the same test, and American kids place eighth, well above the international average. But by age 15, when students from 40 countries are tested, the Americans place 25th, well below the international average. In other words, the longer American kids stay in American schools, the worse they do. They do worse than kids from much poorer countries, like Korea and Poland.

This should come as no surprise since public education in the USA is a government monopoly. If you don't like your public school? Tough. If the school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad.”

Compulsory school age in Belgium is 6 through 18, with an option for 16+ to study part-time, similar testing to the US, rigid assessment and schooling is free in most cases—but choices are inherent in their system. You can choose a type 1 or type 2 school; 1 is more general and 2 is a more niche approach. Beyond that, there are different language schools, international schools where children can stay with the system of their originating country, a variety of religious or secular-focused schools, method schools that provide an “experience” of each subject as an alternative to a formal setting, selective “European” schools and Montessori schools. It is still largely a government-funded and controlled system, but the choice remains with parents.

Now, Belgian schools are having problems, particularly Jewish schools, but the problems they face according to the news I’ve read are because of too much rigid government control. Some Belgians feel Jewish schools are becoming the target of de-certification (which means their students cannot go to college) because of their religious objections to education policies. Parents seem to feel deeply that choice and vouchers are valuable and legendary, and that the government should be more laissez-faire.

“Vandensavel [Belgian School Principal] adds, "America seems like a medieval country . . . a Communist country on the educational level, because there's no freedom of choice -- not for parents, not for pupils."

In kindergarten through 12th grade, that is. Colleges compete, so the United States has many of the most prestigious in the world -- eight of the top 10 universities, on a Chinese list of the world's top 500. (The other two are Cambridge and Oxford.)

Accountability is why universities and private schools perform better. Every day they are held accountable by parents and students, and if they fail the kids, school administrators lose their jobs. Public school officials almost never lose jobs.

Government schools are accountable only to their fellow politicians, and that kind of accountability is virtually no accountability.

The public schools are cheating the children.”

I think that good sense, and a sense of urgency, should find us applying more choice to our reform of education.