A Choice Experiment

”I came to California to restructure our schools here to the model that I have in Texas,“ he said. ”Some of what I saw occurring here was not standard operating procedure.“ He added that he could not comment directly on complaints because of pending litigation over one2one‘s alleged practices.

In the end, charter schools will prove a costly and distracting sideshow if their main accomplishment is to create publicly funded boutique campuses that serve families who could have paid for their choices through private schools. The true litmus test of charters’ worth will be in places like inner-city Los Angeles.

In many respects, charters are proto-voucher schools. As in a voucher system, the families take their children‘s public funding to a school of their choice. Unlike in proposed voucher systems, a charter school cannot charge the parents extra or promote a religion. But conservative supporters clearly see charter schools as paving the way for a voucher-system-to-come by hooking middle-class voters -- and urban residents disgusted with local schools -- on the concept of choice, then taking it one step further. The idea of a market-based school-choice system dates back at least to the 1950s, when it was promulgated in the early work of conservative economist Milton Friedman, who still sounds the clarion call for both charters and vouchers in his eponymous newsletter.

It’s ironic then that the big federal push for charter schools has come under President Bill Clinton, an anti-voucher Democrat, and Education Secretary Richard W. Riley. At last week‘s charter-school convention in Washington, Riley called charters ”an answer to those . . . who would undermine our public schools with vouchers.“ Riley characterized vouchers as ”giving fool’s gold to a handful of students . . . even though they shift resources away from a vast majority of students.“ He also took the occasion to announce proposed federal funding this year of $190 million for charter schools, the highest level ever.

For better or worse, the charter-school genie won‘t be returning to the bottle. Both supporters and critics acknowledge that charter schools are popular among families that choose them. This is true in New Zealand, where negative outcomes have been documented, and it’s true here. Accordingly, it‘s hard to find a politician who hasn’t jumped on the bandwagon.

”We‘ve learned that parental choice is a very powerful vehicle in this state,“ said Nevada County schools Superintendent McAteer. ”Parental choice is more powerful than test scores, the location of the school, and even the physical look and feel of the school. It has to do with the parent saying, ’I have a choice and I am exercising it.‘“ McAteer paused: ”I’m not going to tell you, however, that charter schools are doing a better job than other public schools.“