Give education a choice

“A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding
people to be exactly like one another … An education established and
controlled by the state should only exist, if it exists at all, as one
among many competing experiments.”

— John Stuart Mill

New Coke was a complete failure with consumers — why is it no longer
on store shelves? Studebaker’s 1953 cars were disasters — why aren’t
there any more Studebaker dealerships? You know the answer:
competition. Markets don’t allow anyone to maintain a record of
failure. Here’s another list of failures: cooperative learning,
constructivist math, new math, portfolio assessment, inventive spelling,
death education and outcome-based education. Why are there schools
still pushing these failed education fads?

School choice advocates believe that many of the problems with
education in America are due to lack of competition. California is deep
in the middle of a battle over school choice right now. The mainstream
press portrays it as a fight between teacher unions and right-wing
conservatives. That perception misses the point of the school choice
movement and does a disservice to the victims of the current government
education monopoly. This is not a squabble between political groups —
it is a revolution by parents to rescue their children from failed
schools.

There are many misconceptions about school choice. The four issues
that I want to address here are:

• School choice is not a threat to public education.

• School choice is good for the teaching profession.

• The current system does need to change.

• School choice works.

A lot of people are afraid of school choice because they think it
will undermine public education. The truth is that school choice is not
about undermining public education. It is about provoking public school
educators to meet the needs of students. Although President Clinton
usually sides with teacher unions against school choice, he made a true
statement about its purpose when he said, “Charter schools offer reform,
innovation and increased choice in public education and, by doing so,
they spur improvement throughout our public school system.” The success
of charter schools and other school-choice programs across the country
has proven President Clinton’s point.

Teacher unions fear that school choice threatens them. Competition
is no reason for good teachers to be afraid. What is good for schools
is good for teachers. Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman summed this up,
saying, “Our teachers are undervalued. Since the quality of education
is based on the quality of teachers, competitive schools will have to
hire, train and support the best teachers in order to attract students.
Competition will also allow teachers more freedom to provide creative
and innovative learning environments. Good teachers benefit from
competition, because competing school administrators will seek to hire
them. Public school administrators have to learn to please those
teachers to avoid losing them.”

Good teachers are better off under school choice — it’s clear — but
teacher unions may lose some of their power. Teacher unions paint
school choice as a force against teachers. Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole
said, “We need to turn education back to the teachers and back to the
parents and take it away from the union leaders and make it work in
America again.” The point here is that, in a broad picture, the
interests of teachers and teacher unions are not necessarily aligned.

Most parents don’t have much choice about schools today. Schools
don’t have a “do-or-die” mandate to succeed like all private businesses
do. When school choice has cleared the landscape, teacher unions and
school administrators won’t be able to push trendy ideas like whole
language and new math on students. They won’t be able to replace
traditional curricula with course materials intended to mold the
attitudes of young people in matters that should be left to parents.
American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shankar once said,
“When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start
representing the interests of children.” That attitude won’t be
possible in an environment of school choice.

A lot can be learned by looking at the experience of the states that
already have active school choice programs in effect. Former Milwaukee
Public Schools Superintendent Carol Innerst made some interesting
observations that she attributed to the expansion of school choice in
Milwaukee. According to her report, the Milwaukee Public School system
has:

• Sought to encourage parents of young children to attend public
  school by promising in radio ads that the district will hire private
  tutors if students are not able to read at grade level by the third
  grade.

• Permitted a dozen schools to hire teachers outside the seniority
  system that stymies reform.

• Responded to longstanding requests by parents for more new
  schools that specialize in such popular programs as Montessori.

Now that’s customer service! And that’s probably not the level of
service that most of us associate with the current public education
system. That kind of change won’t happen without a cold glass of water
in the face of administrators of failing schools. In fact, in the same
report, Innerst quotes assistant superintendent Maureen Backenstoss of
the Lake County School District as saying exactly that about
accountability under Florida’s A+ school choice plan: “It was like a
glass of cold water in the face.”

School choice is about more than simply being able to choose among
available schools. It is about the opportunity to create learning
environments where parents believe their children should go to school.
I want public schools that are unresponsive to students and parents to
be forced to change by the force of competition. Just the “threat” of
school choice has forced public schools in Florida to make a mad dash
towards responsiveness. Since school choice came on the horizon,
otherwise stagnant schools have started emergency programs to meet the
learning needs of students.

Since I am a public school student, I have a particular interest in
this issue. I am a junior-level student at Horizon Instructional
Systems, a California-based charter school for grades K-12. HIS has
contributed to my education in a way that I strongly doubt a traditional
public school could have. My personal experience is one reason I
support the school choice movement — charter schools in particular.

HIS provides resources to parents for home schooling. Home schooling
is an option that might not be appropriate for every child but, for
self-motivated children who find a traditional academic environment
stifling, it can be very successful. It’s an increasingly popular
option. Home schooling in the United States is up from 15,000 children
in 1978 to 1.5 million today. You may already know that all top-three
finishers of this year’s National Spelling Bee were home-schooled.

I went to conventional public schools until grade 5. I had good
experiences there and had excellent teachers. My older brother Timothy
had attended the local high school and recommended that I look for an
alternative to it when I got out of grade school. When I heard about
the Horizon Instructional Systems charter school, my mother and I
reviewed what they had to offer and decided that I should enroll there.
I have always had the option to go back to a conventional local public
school but I have been very satisfied with HIS.

A common misconception about home-schoolers is that they don’t get
enough socialization. For myself — and probably most home-schoolers —
this isn’t true. I am in a bowling league where I can meet friends. I
volunteer once a week at the library where I’ve made some really good
friends of all different ages. I meet people at the music store where I
take drum lessons and I met some interesting folks when I took a class
at the local junior college. High school certainly isn’t the only place
for a kid to make friends or gain social skills — nor is it necessarily
the best.

Within HIS’s guidelines, my parents and I have been able to choose a
curriculum specifically tailored for my interests and talents. I’ve
focused on computer programming, auto mechanics, piano and drumming. I
even get to choose textbooks for myself that match my learning style
from HIS’s approved catalog. HIS has provided me with computer
equipment and software to work with, heads for my drum set, and even
preserved frogs to dissect for biology. One of HIS’s highly-trained
education specialists meets with me bi-weekly to check on my progress,
holds me accountable for homework, and answers any questions I’ve run
into those two weeks. A math tutor meets with me every week.

I feel like I’ve been served very well by this charter school. They
have treated me more like a valued customer than just another student to
push through the system.

My positive experience with HIS charter school has made me a strong
supporter of charter schools for improving educational quality in
California and elsewhere. I agree with HIS’s mission statement that
“Horizon Instructional Systems makes parental choice in education a
reality today.”

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Daniel Roloff is a 15-year-old charter school student who enjoys programming and playing the drums and piano. Before its untimely demise, Dan had written several articles about technology for WorldNetDaily Commentary Editor Joel Miller’s former webzine, Real Mensch.