Editorials

 













 

Published: October 29, 2000

Parent Choices & School Competition
By Emory Curtis

Recently the Superintendent of Detroit's troubled public school, system, Kenneth Burnley, system said, "We have to compete. We need to compete," when speaking of the 18,000 drop in number of students attending that school system since 1998 and facing the impact on Detroit's public schools if the statewide voucher system on the ballot passes this November.

In making those statements he was publicly recognizing that Detroit's public schools needed to change to make itself a desirable and viable K-12 educational alternative for concerned parents of school children in its attendance area who have the means to enroll their child(ren) in an alternative system.  He wasn't blaming the alternative systems for only taking the good students, or blaming parents for taking their children out of the public school system and thereby robbing the public schools of the good students and concerned parents.

Superintendent Burnley was recognizing a simple fact.  Given a choice, parents will take the school option they think is best for their child.  Furthermore, they should do that.  Their fundamental responsibility is to the development of the child, not saving a public school system.

The Detroit public school system lost those students to charter schools, public schools and better schools in neighboring districts which the parents (at least) felt would do a better job of educating and/or protecting their youngsters.  Those former public school parents didn't want to leave the public school system, the public school system drove them away. 

Poor academic performance and lack of physical protection are two of the main reasons parents remove their children from public schools when they can.  Parents with the money to remove their child(ren) from poor performing public school do so.  If passed, voucher systems on the Michigan and California ballots will give more parents the wherewithal to consider different schools for their child(ren).

That's good because, as a new federal report shows, education pays off.   That Census Bureau report shows that each step up the educational ladder brought an average earning increase.  The average earnings of high school dropouts was $16,053 in 1998, high school graduates $23,594, bachelor degrees $43,782 and those with graduate degrees had average earnings of $63,473 in 1998.

It is natural and desirable for each parent to want their child to go as far up that education ladder as they can.  It is also in the public interest for parents to have that attitude and for the government to assist parents through vouchers to expand their realistic school choices.

In California, I'll bet that many parents of San Francisco school district high school seniors wish they had made different school choices years before for their senior high school student.  Thirty percent of the supposedly graduating seniors won't get diplomas because they haven't even been given the courses that the district has mandated they must have for graduation. 

Can you believe that?

Black and Hispanic students each make up a third of those seniors who won't get diplomas unless the Board of Education votes to waive the district's three year old standard for graduation. 

Of the district's 17 high schools, six reported about 40 percent of their graduates haven't taken the required courses to graduate.  A real question to be asked and answered by the school administration, is where did those students,  teachers and administrators get off the track?  Isn't a primary goal of the K-12 system to prepare the students to meet its graduation requirement?

Furthermore, can any of the teachers and administrators in the San Francisco school system state with a straight face that harm would have been done to the public school systems if more of their concerned parents had a viable option to move their child(ren) to a non-public school of their own choosing?  I don't think so.

If they had an option and a fair number of them exercised it, then the school leadership in San Francisco would have adopted the admonition of the Detroit Superintendent who said, "We have to compete." 

On the urban scale, San Francisco is not a poorly performing school district.  Many urban districts wish their problems were San Francisco size.  In all urban districts parents need the wherewithal to pick and choose the school for their children. 

 K-12 education will be a winner in this national election for president and legislative office without regard to who wins the presidency or the outcome of statewide school voucher votes in California and Michigan. 

That's because this election has tied delivery of public school education and student academic performance together into a political issue.  That's where they should be in a knowledge-based economy. 

All of this talk about how to spend the surplus ten years out will be long forgotten if our K-12 education system doesn't raise the student performance norm so businesses in this country to stay on top of this world wide knowledge economy.

Let me hear from you: (916)961-1859 (V); (916)961-1596 (FAX); e-mail; eccurtis@hotmail.com. or 8931 Bluff Lane, Fair Oaks, CA 95628.  To see back columns http://home.earthlink.net/~eccurtis.

 


{advert}