[MUSIC]

We're going to continue our discussion of school choice with the analytical lens.

And in this segment, I'm going to be summarizing the arguments that opponents

and advocates make for and against school choice.

This is a complicated set of arguments, because in many situations,

opponents and advocates are using the same information and

the same arguments to make opposite points.

And so, it's very confusing to sort out what's real and what isn't real, and

who's right and who's wrong in that kind of context.

So starting with the opponents, the arguments that they're making have to do,

in some respect, a group of them have to do with both the individual

aspect of school choice, and the system level.

So in an earlier segment I talked about the idea that school choice is

based on assumptions that it will improve individual outcomes,

it'll improve school outcomes, and it'll improve system outcomes.

And opponents are going after all

three of those different sets of assumptions at each of those levels.

So starting at the individual level, one of the common things that opponents say,

is that families don't actually make informed decisions.

So if school choice rests on this idea that families

make choices that increase the fit and quality of the options that

they're being given, but it also is going to pressure the right schools to close.

Opponents basically say families don't exercise good choice.

They don't use good information, good information isn't available.

And they're not informed

in the way that they're going about deciding which schools they choose.

And therefore this isn't a good way to think about schooling.

Rather, we should be investing our energy in to making all schools good, rather than

relying on parental choice to drive school and system improvement.

A second argument kind of builds off of that in regards to individual choice.

And it basically says that, yes it´s the case that some families will make choices,

and yes it's the case that some families will make informed choices,

but when they do, the students who don't engage in any

kind of choice are the ones who get left behind.

So if it's the case that the parents that are more informed or more educated,

or have more time to think about these decisions all move their children out of

a school.

But the students that get left behind are those who actually have

parents with less means, or are making less informed choices,

then what you're doing is further stratifying the system.

And the schools, the traditional public schools,

kind of get left with the students with the highest needs.

Another way of thinking about this is to move to the school level,

and opponents to school choice say, it really is the case that

having an individual school fail, or a number of school failures

is not ultimately going to result in system improvement.

So let's say that parents actually do make informed choices.

They move their kids out, they go to higher performing schools.

The argument is, in the end, this won't actually improve the system.

Part of this argument rests on the idea that there aren't enough high performing

schools for students to make choices to move to them.

And so, if we don't have enough high quality options for

students to move into, presumably they have to continue to go to the low

performing school if they're on a wait list somewhere, for instance.

And so opponents of school choice say look, this isn't a system level

improvement strategy to let parents choose where they go to school.

I think building on that is a set of arguments that

has to do with school choice from the perspective of

the schools that are not traditional public schools that are involved in this.

So charter schools or private schools,

if students are given vouchers to go to private schools,

they are allowed to behave in a different way than traditional public schools.

They are allowed to potentially tell students that they don't serve,

they can't serve them, because they don't have appropriate staffing to serve

students with disabilities, for instance, or

to serve students who speak English as a second language, for instance.

And so charter and private schools opponents say, can opt to not

accept in a lottery, or not keep particular students with certain needs,

whereas traditional public schools can't do that.

And again, it rests on this idea that this will further increase stratification,

or leave students with more needs, in some context,

while allowing those who make better choices, who have lesser needs,

to get a better education, but leaving the needier students behind.

So let's turn to the advocate side of this.

Why would school choice work?

In some ways, when I went through the theory of action of school choice,

you probably got a sense of what advocates say about the notion of school choice,

and competition is really at the root of this.

This notion that increased competition, and forcing schools to compete for

their students is ultimately going to lead to better outcomes for

both individuals and for schools, and ultimately for school systems.

And so if we allow parents to choose,

it is going to essentially force schools to improve over time.

And I think this takes different forms.

It takes the form of the pressure that schools feel to innovate,

the form of schools feeling pressured to have higher levels of accountability,

of needing to increase the type of innovative programs that they have.

And the idea behind all of this is, if I know in order to get my per pupil dollars

that are associated with particular students, that I have to innovate,

that I have to be more accountable, that I have to have better programming,

that I will do that as a school if I'm in a competitive context.

Whereas if I know that I'm guaranteed students because they have to

attend my school because of an attendance boundary,

then I won't necessarily do that as a school leader, or as a school district.

And so I think that is the basic notion

behind advocates arguments is this notion of competition.

I think the other two arguments have to do, or there are many arguments,

but two other arguments have to do with what choosing actually does for parents.

And advocates believe that when parents choose and

they take the time to actually look at a set of options and

opt into a school rather than just happening into a school because

they're assigned to it, there really is this belief on the part of advocates that

that improves parental engagement and parental relations with the school.

So I'm choosing to come here, I'm going to have higher levels of confidence,

higher levels of engagement, and that in turn is going to

both improve student outcomes, but also improve the school as a whole.

I think finally, and this is a place where advocates and opponents disagree, is on

whether or not school choice is actually better for low income students of color.

Advocates say, look we look at how school choice is happening

in the United States and all the different forms that school choice takes.

And what we see is that it more effects options for

low income students of color than it does for anyone else.

And that's because, it's assumed, advocates assume, that middle and

upper class students have choice already by virtue of their social status.

And that actually this takes that notion of the school choice that is

built into the kind of privilege that middle end income families have,

and gives that opportunity to low income students of color.

Opponents, on the other hand, think about this in a slightly different way, and

say that yes it's the case that those who are choosing, that low income students of

color are choosing to participate in school choice options, but

some of them do not choose to participate in those options, and

therefore get left further behind.

So its further stratifying even the low income population between those that have

a certain inclination to participate in school choice from those that don't,

further stratifying the system.

But going back to this balance between democracy and capitalism.

So this notion of either education being for an individual, or

education being for society as a whole, and some of the assumptions because school

choice is that if we allow individuals to make choices that are good for

themselves, that that in turn is going to pressure the system to improve.

Opponents and advocates disagree about whether or

not that relationship actually exists.

And so the question becomes, how do we balance the individual needs and

the societal needs around education?

I think a second question focuses on whether or not we actually see improved

outcomes for students, schools, the evidence is very mixed on this.

And in some cases, researchers are using the same identical database with slightly

different methods to argue exactly the opposite point on whether school vouchers

have resulted in student achievement growth, or system improvement, or

whether charter schools across the country have improved student outcomes or not.

And so this becomes really difficult to understand whether or not this

is improving outcomes for individuals or for schools or the system as a whole.

As a third critical question is the idea of how choice strategies can

be used more effectively in the places that they're already in use.

So if we assume for a moment that this is going to continue to be

a way that school districts and schools organize themselves, then we need to ask

the question about whether or not there are ways that we can do it better.

Certainly there are some who would argue that school choice strategy should be

eliminated, but if we are going to use them then what can we possibly learn

about the ways in which we can use them as a more powerful lever.

What kind of information do parents need to make these choices in the first place?

This is one of the strongest, kind of pushes

that those who worry about school choice put into the kind of discussion

about this topic is, parents, this relies on parents

actually making informed judgements about what is a high quality school.

And we need to be able to arm parents,

with the right kind of information to be able to make those decisions.

And so the question is what do they actually need to be able to do that,

to make good choices for their own students but

also hopefully to be making choices that can improve the system as a whole?

So that is the end of the segments that focus on the summary of

the school choice issue, and next we are going to move into a set

of segments that focus specifically on charter schools.

And trying to understand more deeply

the history of charter schools, and

what we know about their effectiveness.

[MUSIC]

Arguments For and Against School Choice

Critical Issues in Urban Education

Meet the Instructors