On Wednesday, a U.S. Senate panel is set to grill Betsy DeVos before deciding whether to confirm her as the country’s next education secretary. Democrats have made her a target. Some have already announced their opposition.
For perspective, it’s worth remembering the limits of the position:
Given that the federal government contributes approximately 10% of the total spending in the nation’s sprawling, decentralized landscape of 100,000 public K-12 schools, it is neither plausible nor desirable that an Education secretary chase the chimera of a transformational national education policy.
How can the federal government help the school choice cause?
School choice has been among the highest education-reform priorities for conservatives over the last generation, and for 25 years, states have been gradually embracing the concept. There are now scores of state-level charter-school, scholarship, tax-credit and education savings accounts programs. Millions of boys and girls are participating in these programs.
With GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, some see an unprecedented opportunity to go big on school choice. President-elect Donald Trump has even floated the idea of a $20 billion initiative. But if conservatives once again give in to the temptation to federalize a successful, slow-building, state-led reform, school choice could be threatened in the long term. A federal program could be expensive and clunky. It could elevate Washington’s priorities over those of states and families. It could end up as just another plodding, technocratic program administered by a distant bureaucracy that frustrates parents and communities.
So is there some way for conservatives to have it both ways – to help their national leaders expand school choice and avoid the perils of federalizing an important reform?
Fred Hiatt offers a promising suggestion:
DeVos could offer one or two cities the chance to become laboratories of choice.
Any city where schools are struggling would be eligible to volunteer. (That is a big pool.) The federal government would offer financial help, on the condition that the city and state not reduce their contributions.
The system would then stop funding schools and begin funding families. Every child would be given an annual scholarship. Poor children, who often enter school needing extra attention, would get bigger scholarships. Children with disabilities would get more, too.
Meanwhile…
Mitt Romney weighs in for DeVos. At long last: A nuanced, non-polemic look at her involvement in Detroit. Howard Fuller talks sense. More context for his comments. A conservative critique of President-elect Trump’s stated school choice plan.
Polarized politics prompt some charter school backers to distance themselves from vouchers.
As tribal tensions run high, Robin Lake and Mike Petrilli offer unifying ideas.
Speaking of tribal tensions, libertarian writers and policy wonks went hard in the paint against University of Michigan economist Susan Dynarski. Her offense? A New York Times column that, critics contend, overstated economists’ skepticism about market forces in education. All she really argued was that economists are less sanguine about the benefits of competition in education than they are in other realms, like transportation. Dynarski’s published views on educational choice tend to closely follow the student achievement data. The data support her argument this time, too.
In a similar vein: Some suggestions for making vouchers work better. Tribalism and hubris in edu-scholarship.
Teachers unions cross the tribal divide and get involved with charter schools. Strangeness ensues.
A founding father of the charter school movement argues school choice can be beneficial in rural areas, too.
Who’s better at running schools? Man vs machine. More about that.
Chester Finn’s perspective on the Catholic School Rennaissance:
The two most important changes in American education policy over the past several decades have been the expansion of school choice and changes to school accountability. So far, they’ve generally been good for our country and our kids. Yet they’ve largely left Catholic schools behind—and the leaders of Catholic education haven’t tried very hard either to resist these changes or to take advantage of them.
Resistance, mind you, probably would have been futile, although Catholic educators could surely have done more to help shape these changes. But mostly they stood by while change happened. And while those changes were happening in public policy, Catholic schools, overall, seemed like victims of a slow but serious wasting disease.
Lots of interesting charter school legislation is brewing in Texas.
Evidence mounts that curriculum and instruction matter. Signs abound in Louisiana and California.
A billionaire philanthropist gets active in Philly.
A unified enrollment system will make school choice more parent-friendly in Indianapolis.
The school choice movement needs to pay more attention to funding issues.
We’ll let Condoleezza Rice take it from here:
Right now, if I am of means and I have a kid, I will move to a school district where the schools are good. That will be Palo Alto [California] or Fairfax County [Virginia] or Hoover, Alabama, near where my relatives live, and the public schools will be really good. If I’m really wealthy maybe I’ll send my kids to private school. So who’s stuck in failing neighborhood schools? Poor kids. That’s the height of inequality. Give the parent of that child the same ability, whether it’s a charter school or inter-district mobility or whether it is a voucher, to put that child in a place where he or she is going to succeed.
Oh, and by the way, give them the chance to do something in the arts. I’m all for STEM education — it’s really important, science and technology and math — but the arts sometimes open up children’s minds and their horizons and their confidence in a way that nothing else does.
Quote of the Week
“We feel it’s a parent’s right to choose.”
—Becky Pringle, vice president of the National Education Association, as captured in this entertaining roundup of teachers union quotes.
Tweets of the Week
Gov: "I'm introducing legislation that will widely offer students the option of a full-time virtual education at every grade level"
— Governor Ralph Northam (@VAGovernor73) January 4, 2017
This outlet has featured my work on school choice, @wburEDify. https://t.co/FGEpn2PTvg
— Prof Dynarski (@dynarski) January 4, 2017
Robinson: We focus too much on the "or" — school choice or public schools. It should be "and."
— Caitlin Emma (@caitlinzemma) January 4, 2017
That’s Gerard Robinson she’s citing. And we couldn’t agree more.
The week in school choice compiles news and views from around the country. We went long this week because we included some highlights that appeared during our two-week holiday hiatus. Sign up here to get it in your inbox on Sundays, or look for it on Monday mornings.
Please send links, tips pushback and feedback to Travis Pillow.
