School Choice: Should Parents Determine Their Children's Educational Path?

Not much seems to raise the ire of our current public school system more than the two simple words “school choice”. This is primarily because these words represent a shift in thinking, which public schools do not seem to want. As long as the approach is unchanged, public schools may continue to fail, spend our tax dollars as they please with little or no accountability. Evidence suggests that the status quo of urban education condemns many of our children to a life of poverty or incarceration.

When President Bush suggested the No Child Left Behind Act, which required that public schools produce positive results for the investment made, he was vilified. Met with tremendous resistance from the public education community, this legislation stated, in effect, that all children deserved a chance at a quality education. This legislation was not perfect by any means, but it was important because it brought a new challenge to public education, especially in economically challenged communities.

It is time for us to face two important realities. First, we must accept that quality education is one of the best weapons against entrenched poverty, and then we should agree that parents should have the authority over their own children’s educational path. The first assertion is something upon which most of us agree, liberal or conservative, black, brown or white. Yet it is the latter idea that seems to generate the most angst because it squarely places the responsibility of a child’s future upon the parent. Many who support public education suggest that children will fail because parents, especially those in economically challenged communities, may not be able to navigate successfully the educational system to the benefit of their children.

However, right here in Gary, IN the evidence would suggest different. A thriving charter school community is presenting a serious challenge to the theory that people in urban centers with high poverty and unemployment; are not concerned with their children’s education. In fact, while driving by one of the new charter schools, I saw parents happily pick up their children and children joyfully engaging their parents in conversation. This by no means is scientific data for the support of school choice and I am sure this occurs in public schools as well, but the recent achievement of these charter schools in standardized testing suggests they offer quality educational options.

Obviously, the success of educating our children involves more than the school. Truly, we must have parental involvement throughout the process. Nevertheless, the expression of the liberty for parents to choose where to educate their children is necessary, especially in communities with entrenched and cyclic poverty. The notion of school choice or vouchers is one that many local political leaders reject as unattainable and destructive to public schools. Based on the Democratic Party’s long standing resistance to school vouchers or school choice, one can conclude their belief is that parents should not decide the educational fate of their own children. Instead, they offer misguided solutions that often trap children in a lifetime of victimization, complete with ready-made excuses for failure.

If we are going to spend tax dollars on educating our young, then it requires us to receive the most return on such an investment. Each parent deserves the fundamental right to invest his or her own tax dollars in a public, charter or private educational institution for the benefit of his or her own child. Forcing economically challenged parents to send their children to failing schools is a sentence to poverty for children and the community.