The School District of Philadelphia building. (Credit: iStock by Getty Images)
Most families already have school choice. They can send their children to a school that they choose. One that they like, that works for their children. One where they feel safe.
If their neighborhood school is dangerous, or has poor (or disastrous) test scores — or teaches values that undermine their family’s values — most families have options. They can choose another school, one that works.
They are able to pay tuition and send their children to a non-public school — Catholic, Quaker, Jewish, or private. They move within their district to the “better” schools — moving to center city Philadelphia for the sought-after Albert M. Greenfield Elementary. Or, if there are no good options in their school district, they could move to a better district.
Good for them. What about the other families?
What if you can’t afford the tuition for a Catholic school? (About $5-6,000 for elementary and $10-11,000 for high school. By the way, the Philadelphia School District spends about $24,000/student) Or, you can’t afford the $499,000 for the average price of a home in Center City Philadelphia, or the $516,000 home in Lansdale?
Too many politicians have a cold-blooded answer for those parents and guardians: Tough luck.
They’ll likely dress it up by empathizing with you — telling you it’s a “shame,” even an “outrage” that your child’s school is violent or has failing test scores — or even both.
They’ll tell you that they’re “working” to get you “more money” — because they’ve created the Pavlovian response among too many citizens: Schools violent? More money. Falling test scores? More money. Falling graduation rates? More money.
The problem is that the spending keeps going higher — much higher. Yet the scores are stagnant or falling, the graduation rates are stagnant or falling, and too many public schools are violent.
Again, if you have enough money, none of that is your problem. You just buy your way out.
The education establishment and the elitist mindset — often led by suburban, white, upper middle-class, “progressive” legislators who went to private schools, send their children to private schools or moved to “good” suburban public schools — vehemently oppose every escape plan. They block legislation to help those who can’t afford to move: vouchers, tax credits, or scholarship programs allowing parents to use education tax dollars to pick a better school for their children.
Blocking the schoolhouse doors to non-public schools.
Why don’t those families send their children to charter schools? After all, aren’t they public schools that are “different” — more discipline, more structure, sometimes with specialized curricula?
“Problem.” Too many parents and guardians do want that option.
Philadelphia charters have enrollment caps — imposed by the Philadelphia School District. In public education, McDonald’s gets to decide how many people can go to Chik-Fil-A — plus McDonald’s gets to decide the age of Chik-Fil-A’s customers, their menu options, and the budget for Chik-Fil-A.
In other words, in Philadelphia, where there are as many as 30,000 students on charter school waiting lists — and who knows how many parents and guardians don’t even bother to sign up for the waiting lists — the politicians are blocking the charter schoolhouse door.
Across the state, there are sometimes enrollment caps, too.
Another tactic of the public education establishment is to create a complicated and onerous application process to open a new charter school — like they’re trying to open a chemical waste plant next to a children’s hospital.
Since public school districts are the ones who decide if a new charter school may open or expand, their school boards simply vote “no.” They give a variety of reasons. They don’t like the curriculum. They don’t trust the applicants to do a good job. Or the tried and true lofty denial from suburbia: “We don’t need a charter school here; everything is wonderful. Why would anyone want to leave us?” Looking at you, West Chester Area and Radnor School Districts, — who have repeatedly denied applications and made it clear: “Charters need not apply.”
The education-industrial complex stands in the way of a new charter schoolhouse door.
Well, if there’s “no room” in many charter schools, or the powers that be won’t allow a charter school to open, couldn’t those parents choose one of those cyber charter schools — the online schools?
First, a parent or guardian has to believe that their child would do well in that setting. For many, yes; for many, no.
Yet since cyber schools are growing in student population and traditional public school enrollment is falling, the education-industrial complex is battling cybers, too.
Almost half of the fourteen cyber charter schools now have “enrollment caps.” This is as funny as it is tragic, since there is no space issue — the students don’t go to the school building.
Here’s the chaser: the education establishment is not satisfied with enrollment caps. For the last three budget cycles, the teachers unions, school boards, and the businesses that make money off of the $41 billion public education industry are using their political muscle and countless lobbyists to cut funding for cybers.
If they can’t regulate cyber charters to death, cap them. If that’s not enough, cut their funding. Blocking the virtual schoolhouse door.
It was bad enough in the old days, when the bigots and elitists used to block the schoolhouse doors to not let “them” in good schools.
Today, the bullies, whether motivated by power, money, race or class, are in many way worse: they’re blocking children from getting out of failing schools.
