WHAT IS A 'GOOD' SCHOOL? DO ALL THE CHOICES OUT THERE MAKE
IT EASIER OR HARDER TO FIND?
by Alex Cohen, Monica Bushman, and Kyle Stokes | Take Two /
KPCC 89.3 | http://bit.ly/1R5U7Nh
March 18, 09:48 AM :: Parents throughout L.A. have been on the hunt
since last fall for a "good" school for their children. And now, many
are finding out whether they got in.
But what is a "good" school? Even if you don't
have kids, it's something to consider.
Just think about where some of your tax dollars go and what
a so-called "good" school in your neighborhood can do to home prices.
Or about what a widening achievement gap means for the future of the economy.
In big cities like L.A., there are lots of schools to choose
from, but is that really a good thing?
SCPR Education Reporter Kyle Stokes and L.A. parents
Benjamin Henwood, Emily Simon and Brandi Jordan joined Take Two to discuss.
WHY SO MANY CHOICES?
'School choice' is something that we don't really think
about, but it's actually been a facet of major school district education going
way back decades. In L.A., the magnet school program goes back to 1977, that's
when it first got started under desegregation. It was a means of removing the
problem of racial isolation in schools.
As the years have gone on it's taken on a little bit of a
different flavor. People talk about 'school choice' as a means of breaking
people out of the zip code that they're in. There's this critique that you hear
a lot from many different corners that says 'no child's success in school
should be determined by the zip code in which he lives.'
WHAT DOES THE TERM 'SCHOOL CHOICE' MEAN?
It refers to going to a school outside of your neighborhood
or home school, using any different number of options— charter schools, magnet
schools, anywhere where you're applying to a situation where you're not going
to the school down the block or the zone in which you live.
And that appeals to people from a lot of different sides of
the political spectrum. People on the left love to think about it in terms of
equality of outcomes. When it comes to people being able to have economic
opportunity in this world, you need to go to a good school. On the right a
really interesting emerging story line is that public school systems are a
monopoly because they're so big and so impenetrable, and that's kind of
accountable to no one, so the argument goes. And that's why school choice has
become such a popular option for so many people.
HOW WIDESPREAD IS 'SCHOOL CHOICE'?
There is a really interesting report that surveyed parents
in eight different big cities— Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit,
Indianapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, D.C. And they bear out what I think
you'll find in a lot of big cities all across the country. The survey suggests
55 percent of parents are exercising school choices. And it wasn't just those
kind of active, involved, well-educated parents with master's degrees. It found
59 percent of parents with some college or more were exercising school choice,
but so were 49 percent of people with a high school education or less. It's a
very universal phenomenon.
WHEN IT COMES TO SCHOOLS FOR OUR CHILDREN, ARE MORE CHOICES
A BETTER THING?
I think the jury is out on that in a lot of respects. You
look at people who are supporters of charter schools for instance who say
charter schools are a major means of driving equity and providing other
options. But then in the macro view, you look at the differences between a
charter school and a regular school district school and, on balance, those even out. Charters don't perform any
better or any worse.
The other issue is desegregation and that's one of those
issues where the jury is also still out. Magnet schools for instance were a
means of ending segregation in schools back when it was first rolled out here
in L.A., but I think now if you look at the evidence, the anecdotal evidence is
maybe that it's the parents who are affluent, who are best able to navigate the
system, that are using school choice to find the best outcomes for their kids
and thus resegregating schools. It's not clear that that's happening but it's a
possibility. The research is still not proven on that, but it's possible that
'school choice' is exacerbating this long-standing problem that we've had.
WHY SHOULD PEOPLE WHO DON'T HAVE KIDS CARE ABOUT THIS?
If you don't have kids that go to public schools, I think
you still have to care about the outcomes of public schools. If you look at our
country versus other developed nations around the world and you look at our
levels post-secondary, college or career-ready attainment, you absolutely have
to be worried. You absolutely have to be worried about the problem of the
achievement gap where students of color and white students or privileged
students don't have the same outcomes that we would like to see if we want to
have a healthy economy. The future of our economy is at stake here.
WHAT L.A. PARENTS HAVE TO SAY:
Emily Simon, a writer/producer and Eagle Rock magnet school
parent:
"I would talk
myself into 'oh it's fine it's fine we'll do what we need to do when we need to
do it' and then I would wake up as if out of a nightmare, just heart pounding,
sick to my stomach. Because I care so much about my son's future, every parent
cares about their child's future. And you're made to think that this will
determine everything. That where your child goes to kindergarten will just
project the rest of his life. "
Brandi Jordan, owner of The Cradle Company, and mother of
two children, one who attends a French immersion private school:
"What I'm
seeing now in schools, and you would think that it would have grown and become
less segregated, [is] that you're getting more of that. And so I think that's
part of the issue that I want my kid to also learn what's not in the textbooks.
Can they learn about socioeconomic diversity? Are they going to know about a
global mindset? Are they going to understand people who live in apartments
versus people who live in big houses? That's something that I think is really
hard to navigate. When you want the best for your kid, does that mean that
you're going to private school and foregoing diversity?"
Benjamin Henwood, an assistant professor at USC's School of
Social Work and a father of twins entering kindergarten:
"It's a big
decision to make but I think what I've learned is [that] the sort of wisdom out
there on the street, I don't think it holds actually. I know many of the people
in the neighborhood who go to the local school who love it, who think it's a
great school. I know plenty of people who've gone to the better schools and
pulled their kids out— 'better' meaning higher ranked or [higher] scores. So I
think some of that has put me more at ease."
- To hear the full interview, click here: http://bit.ly/1puzWOe.
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