The Bangor area is home to a number of communities in which parents and families have school choice options, so the Feb. 9 BDN editorial describing school choice as “dangerous” was something of a surprise.
More surprising, though, was the paper’s embrace of one of the most troubling arguments against allowing families some say over the educational opportunities to which their children have access. Too many parents, the BDN argued, “aren’t intelligent enough” to make the right decisions about where their children should go to school.
The BDN attempts to explain why choice is risky by employing the example of a latte shop. In a free market economy, free people decide to bring a product, such as lattes, to the marketplace. The BDN rightly suggests that the latte shop with the best products at the best value will almost certainly prevail over its competitors, but reminds readers darkly that consumers, in their ignorance, are just as likely to buy overpriced and undrinkable lattes as not, because their limited capacity for rational decision-making can be easily overwhelmed by the “color of the shop’s walls” and other “nonsubstantive factors.”
The same is true, the BDN argues, with parents and families.
“Parents with intelligence” the editorial continues, will “get their children to better schools,” while those “struggling to keep a car running,” who “must be at work on time” and who “aren’t intelligent enough” to evaluate the relative merits of various schools would make the kinds of decisions about their children’s future that such people always make, which is the wrong ones.
Meanwhile, the BDN neglects to mention that school choice already exists widely. The more affluent among us — those able to afford private schools or those who can move to a district with better schools — already have school choice, have always had it, and always will have it.
In dozens of Maine communities, including many in the Bangor area, parents and families already have a number of school choice opportunities which, strangely enough, they have proven fully capable of navigating successfully. With the passage of public charter school legislation last year, new school choice options will soon be joining the many already in place across the state.
The BDN did not go to the effort of actually describing the school choice proposal in the governor’s reform package. Based on a model found in 17 other states, the governor is proposing to allow school districts to open their enrollment to students outside their district boundaries. Schools and districts could determine the number of students they would accept, in order to effectively manage enrollments, and students across Maine — not just the wealthy or those living where choice is allowed today — would have more educational options from which to choose.
Providing families with such choices, the BDN argues, is not simply wrong, but “dangerous.” Better, it would seem, to have the educational options a student enjoys determined by their street address, as is the practice today. Remember, it is not as though the highly intelligent people in whom the BDN places such faith are the ones determining where children go to school; it is determined by a line on a map.
Gov. LePage proposed last week that we take a significant step to overcome this tyranny of the town line by providing families with more schooling options outside the school district in which they live. He does not share, and neither do I, the belief, expressed by this newspaper, that Maine’s families would be largely incapable of making the right choices for their children if given that opportunity.
Generations of experience in cities and towns across Maine proves otherwise.
Many of us drive old cars and struggle on cold, snowy mornings to get to work on time, yet we still do everything we can to make the right choices for our kids. It is time we had a system of schooling that understands that and more importantly, celebrates it.
Stephen Bowen is commissioner of Maine’s Department of Education.
Bowen writes:
Schools and districts could determine the number of students they would accept, in order to effectively manage enrollments, and students across Maine — not just the wealthy or those living where choice is allowed today — would have more educational options from which to choose.
The reality is that it is only families that have reliable transportation and have the time to drop off and pick up their children will be able to take advantage of “school choice.” If a parent starts their workday at 7:00 or 8:00 a.m., and works until late afternoon, there is no choice.
Then there is the idea of voting representation: parents sending their children to another district will not be allowed to speak at school board meetings, let alone for its members or on the budget. And why would locals want to pick up the 45% tab of all receiving students?
With all the social Media today I am sure that parents set up car pools.
You’re voluntering? Everything is sooo simple in your world …
Voting representation? If a parent chooses to send their kid to another school district, they have the choice to voice their opinion still. They just won’t be able to vote in school elections. This is the choice they freely make. If they don’t like the way the school is being run, they can return their child to the sending school.
As for picking up the tab for the students, it’s not clear to me how the state will manage the funding for students who choose an alternate district.
Sounds like too many downers, a poor choice. Opinions without voting is close to meaningless.
The assertion by the BDN that too many parents “aren’t intelligent enough” to make the right decision for their children education is intellectual elitism at its worse. I’m surprised that the BDN has not taken the next step of arguing that only the college educated and editorial writers, as members of the intelligentsia should have the right to vote.
In case the BDN hasn’t noticed the reputation of school districts has a direct impact on real estate values in in the community. Nobody with children is going to buy a house in a school district with a weak reputation. These potential buyers will exercise choice by electing to buy a home in the school district that has the stronger reputation.
School choice empowers parents to make the best choice for their children’s education and forces everyone in the educational community to pursue a standard of excellence.
Real estate values? Good grief, that must be the reason that Washington County has for sale signs on half the towns. Now all we need to do is get a high speed commuter train to run our children to John Bapst in Bangor.
3 things to consider here:
1. Parents have long had “school choice” in Maine for a number of years through what are called superintendent agreements. If you are interested, simply chat with your superintendent about it. And yes, transportation must be provided by the parents. Nothing in the “new school choice” law will change that.
2. For solid information on how generational and situational poverty effects families and their ability to be involved in “school choice”, please read Ruby Payne’s “Understanding Poverty.” She presents clear and solid evidence contrary to the Commissioner’s statements above.
3. For the facts on how school choice and the privatization of public education has little to no real or lasting effects on student achievement, please read Diane Ravitch’s book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education”. It is without a doubt the best research out there on these topics and the last chapter of the book clearly outlines what we need to do to improve education in this country. Furthermore, Ravitch’s solutions coincide with the findings of Tony Wagner from his book, “The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–And What We Can Do About It”.
Uh oh, somebody this informed about poverty and educational issues must be a teacher. You know the reformers will never listen to you. Facts get in the way of their sucking funds out of the public coffers. They are inconvenient.
Not a teacher. Just informed… like all of us should be.
Thank you for your well-informed and clearly worded considerations. The approach sought by the Governor and Commissioner can only be advanced through distortion of what we know about education and charter schools. It should come as no surprise that there are some activists who want to privatize education so as to create another way of profiting from the basic needs of Americans. These well funded activists have found a willing partnership in this administration. These opponents of our public system are willing to invest their money in “privately funded research” to make their case. Of course, if you are willing to pay someone to express your point of view, there will be takers. School choice is really about dismantling the public education system. Diversion of funding will lead to shortfalls and cuts until the schools are unable to provide their services. Then in come the private schools with their profit motives, taking a chunk of taxpayer money and incentivised to deliver less, so long as the profits increase. This is a destructive concept disguised as a solution.
Do not be fooled. For this radical crowd, making money is far more important than leaving the next generation a means to achieve their potential.
Very well said!
School choice will only work in urban areas and even then, transprotation will be a problem.
Absolutely agreed.
Dear Mr. Bowen,
You have very appropriately picked apart BDN’s analogy about school choice. However, that does not mean that I agree with you even a little bit. For generations we have paid taxes to support our schools and educate our children. Even after our children have finished with public education system, we must continue to pay taxes to support our schools. Allowing vouchers for people to send their kids to the school of their choice is wrong on so many levels. How is it fair to the taxpayers who do not have any children in the schools and thus have no way to direct where their education tax dollars are spent? How is it fair to the working stiffs who don’t have the wherewithall to transport their children to a different school system? How is it fair to the many rural Mainers who just cannot spend hours a day to transport their kids to a different school system? If you are fortunate enough to be able to send your kids to a private school, be thankful. Don’t try to cripple the system that serves those who are not as fortunate as you.
Your public education was paid for by taxpayers. Now it’s your turn to pay to educate the next generation, and so on.
1- As a taxpayer in a district, you will still have the say in how your dollars are spent on the schools in your district.
2- So, in your scheme of fairness, if everyone can’t do something, then nobody should. So, if we have a poor kid who could car pool with a neighbor who works in the town where he wants to go to school, we shouldn’t let him because some other kids wouldn’t be able to do this? This is lunacy.
3- Same for the rural Mainers…Just because some can’t logistically get their kid to a different school does not mean nobody should have the choice. And, where people decide to live when they have kids should be affected by how they plan to have their kids educated. If you have kids, and you choose to live a hundred miles from nowhere, then that is your choice. But you shouldn’t demand that your choice deprive everyone else of a choice of where to send their kid to school.
Finally, if the public education system is serving those less fortunate kids so well, then you have nothing to fear. Parents will not seek a different school if they are happy with the one they have. But if, by chance, public schools are not offering the opportunity that rich kids have at their private schools, I say we let parents who are not wealthy have the opportunity to access the best school they can find for their kid.
Mr. Bowen, I believe that all this song and dance is about opening up the tax payers coffers to fund
for-profit charter schools.
If you are interested in improving all of Maines childrens education, there is something you can do. You can insure that every child gets the foundation they need to absorb higher levels of education, each and every year. This starts at the earliest years of a childs education. K through 6 are probably the most important years. They are the years when the excavation work is done, when the foundation is poured, and the frost walls are built upon them.
As it stands now, ‘no child left behind’ has been interpreted that children will be pushed trough to the next grade level. Wether they are capable of doing that grade level of work or not. This system is the reason that we have so many children passing through the system classified as functionally illiterate.
Until you fix that problem, all the choices and manipulations will not add up to anything.
Our educators in the higher levels of education have been moaning for years about students entering HS, not prepared to do HS level work. Moaning about HS grads getting into college who have to spend their first (very expensive) first year doing remedial work that should have been gotten in HS. Just imagine what these students could accomplish if they had these skills set in their foundation to enable them to hit the ground running toward their goals.
I agree, but for the past 30 years at least, long before NCLB was passed, this society has been dealing with kids who can’t read and write as they enter high school. People keep saying if only we spend more money and offer more early childhood education, we will get better results. But the results are not proving this hypothesis. And yet, people keep citing it like it is a well-proven theory.
Poor scientific method…
It’s fine and dandy to have all these wonderful programs, and you can make the children go to them. But if they aren’t absorbing the information offered they don’t seem to have the power of flunking these kids and making them repeat the program or grade. Some kids are just naturally lazy, and it takes them a nano second to figure out that they don’t have to do the work to make it to the next grade. They will get pushed through and they can stay with their friends. If on the other hand they knew that they would be left behind if they didn’t do the work they would put in more effort.
I know there are children in our schools that have special needs. In fact the shools have people hired to sit with them one on one. But I do have a hard time believing that there are that many changes over the last 60 years. ADD, ADHD, and all the other alphabet conditions and catagories that have become all the rage, seem to me to be excuses to NOT teach the children. These conditions if they exist now, existed 60-100-200 years ago. There was, to my knowledge, no mood altering drugs being prescribed to elementary school children in order for them to function in the class room.
“Meanwhile, the BDN neglects to mention that school choice already exists widely. The more affluent among us — those able to afford private schools or those who can move to a district with better schools — already have school choice, have always had it, and always will have it.”
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That is the HIGH SCHOOL level. For the commissioner to use this as his key example in his editorial is insulting. Those towns with school choice do not have a high school. There is a big difference in paying for your kids to go to their choice of high schools when your town DOES have a high school as opposed to the towns who do NOT have a high school fo finance. Does he really not see this difference. What about a kid in 3rd grade whose parents want them to instead of going to Bangor, want them instead to go to Hampden. Do the 3rd graders get school choice too or is it just the high school level kids? (if it is “good” for high school kids, why wouldn’t it be “good” for 3rd graders).
Towns have no idea what horrendous impact this is going to have on their schools, and anybody who thinks this is as simple as the “bad” schools will be forced to get better, etc are fooling themselves. Parents will move kids for the craziest reasons (she wants to go to Bangor because that is where her boyfriend goes and since my 14 year old daughter runs the household, she gets whatever she wants”…….yes, those things happen way more often than you might think. Many times, a school is seen as “awful” in a parent’s eyes when the school simply doesn’t bow to the parent and give them anything they want (regardless of how unreasonable, irrational, or illegal it might be”
We should be trying our best to stabilize school enrollments. This does the exact opposite of that.
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“Schools and districts could determine the number of students they would accept, in order to effectively manage enrollments, and students across Maine — not just the wealthy or those living where choice is allowed today — would have more educational options from which to choose.”
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Ok genius, how can a school determine the number of students…to “effectively manage enrollments” when that same school might lose 10, 20, 100 kids to your glorious school choice idea? You can’t say, “ok, Bangor High can take 200 kids based on the size, enrollments, staffing, etc.” SO Bangor gets 200 (maybe?), but then loses 140 Bangor resident students to other schools. OH, and again, Bangor taxpayers pay what they pay so people in lower taxed areas can have the benefits of Bangor schools….That will go over well with taxpayers (across the state).
The solution to this is: If you do not have school choice (at the high school level at least), and you want your kid to go to High School A then you MOVE to that town. I know that sounds like such a hassle and all, but since this is all in the name of doing what you think is best for your child, seems like a small price to pay.
Mr. Bowen, this is an amazing analysis! Thank you.
Not.
It’s not the tyranny of the town line…it’s the tyranny of a state funding formula which manages to dump nearly $2 million on FALMOUTH, while cutting elsewhere. “School choice” isn’t the issue…fund schools ALL EQUALLY and remove ridiculous state and federal mandates and let schools run.
Mr. Bowen missed another problem with the BDN’s premise that only parents “with intelligence” will be able to judge which schools are better. Even if we assume that the BDN is correct and that many parents don’t have the smarts to figure out which school is a good one, the market still works.
Using the Latte shop analogy, not every customer needs to sample every shop for the market as a whole to determine that shop Z is shouldn’t be in business. Customers see cars in the parking lots of shops X and Y with fewer in the lot in shop Z and can easily see that the market is voting against shop Z. Who hasn’t done this with restaurants?
Something similar will happen with schools. Parents with the time and interest will compare schools in great detail. Other parents can simply observe whether their school experiences a net loss of students to see whether there is a problem with their local school. Policy-makers can do the same. If 25% of the students in a given district choose not to attend that district, then something needs to be done. This is a clear and unambiguous test and will make the allocation of public resources more efficient.
One problem that I do see with the current proposal is that it allows public money to be spent at religiously affiliated schools. Allowing parents to choose schools is sorely needed, but I can’t support it if doing so violates the separation of church and state.
The Supreme Court has ruled that money to a religiously oriented organization from the government does not violate the First Amendment as long as the government does not show a preferential treatment for one faith over another. There is no strict separation of church and state. The government may not de facto establish a religion through preferential treatment, and it may not inhibit an individual’s ability to freely exercise his or her religion.
Bowen is still offering a pig in a poke (and this pig needs a lot of “lipstick”).
….
sounds like a bunch of idiots work at the BDN.