Opinion
School Choice & Charters Opinion

Challenging 3 Common Critiques of School Choice

By Rick Hess — October 26, 2020 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Like it or not, 2020 has been a massive real-time experiment in school choice. Schools closed, home schooling was the default option for months, and families turned to a raft of alternative arrangements when it became clear that most schools wouldn’t reopen in any conventional sense of the word. As schools have allowed students back on campus, parents have had to choose whether to send their children back in person. Where school buildings remained closed, parents had to choose whether to rely on district-provided remote learning or turn to in-person or remote alternatives.

Yet, ubiquity hasn’t made the choice debates any less hyperbolic. After Secretary of Education Betsy Devos announced this spring that a small portion of the $13.5 billion in federal education relief could be used to support private schools, Sen. Chuck Schumer accused her of using CARES Act funding “not to help states or localities cope with the crisis, but to augment her push for voucher-like programs, a prior initiative that has nothing to do with Covid-19.” AFT President Randi Weingarten encouraged school districts to ignore the department’s guidance entirely.

As families and educators navigate the practical realities of the moment, plenty of policymakers and pundits are engaging in public posturing about choice that is frequently at odds with the facts. This all yields a public discourse that is often unhelpful and sometimes downright misleading. This is why I was glad to see Corey DeAngelis and Neal McCluskey’s new volume, School Choice Myths: Setting the Record Straight on Education Freedom. While DeAngelis and McCluskey will be the first to acknowledge they come at the issue with a pro-choice bent, they’ve done a service in challenging some of the familiar but suspect assertions that pepper public debates about school choice. The book assesses a raft of critiques, but here are three contributions that I found especially timely.

Public schools have an obvious advantage when it comes to creating good citizens and promoting democratic virtues. Patrick Wolf, a professor at the University of Arkansas, takes on this popular notion. He surveys the research on how private schools and traditional public schools fare on this score and reports that, if anything, the research suggests that private schools do a better job preparing citizens. Of 86 findings regarding private and public school effects on political tolerance, political participation, civic knowledge or skills, and voluntarism or social capital, Wolf reports that 50 point to a private school advantage, 33 no statistically significant difference, and just 3 a public school advantage.

Choice programs siphon money from public schools. Marty Lueken of EdChoice and Ben Scafidi of Kennesaw State University bristle at this assertion, noting that most choice programs leave more per-pupil funding for students who remain in district schools (since only a portion of per-pupil funds follow departing students). As they put it, “Public K-12 education is the only enterprise in our society (that we are aware of) that retains significant amounts of funding for customers it no longer serves.”

Voucher programs mostly help wealthy families because the amounts are too small to cover tuition costs for low-income families. Albert Cheng, professor at the University of Arkansas, notes that three-fourths of school choice programs are targeted toward assisting low-income families or children with special needs. He also notes that most parents who opt not to take advantage of choice programs don’t mention the size of the subsidy as a reason. Cheng also points out that residential assignment means that affluent families tend to have already selected their school when they buy a home, meaning that school choice programs will typically have outsized benefits for low-incomes families that haven’t had that opportunity.

In the midst of a pandemic that has turned millions of kitchen tables into makeshift classrooms and made school choice a prosaic reality in communities across the land, there’s a need for practical, plain-spoken assessments of how to make choice work for students and families seeking options. That makes this volume a particularly timely contribution.

Related Tags:
School Choice Opinion

The opinions expressed in Rick Hess Straight Up are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Reflections on Evidence-Based Grading Practices: What We Learned for Next Year
Get real insights on evidence-based grading from K-12 leaders.
Content provided by Otus
Federal Webinar Navigating the Rapid Pace of Education Policy Change: Your Questions, Answered
Join this free webinar to gain an understanding of key education policy developments affecting K-12 schools.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Professional Development Webinar
Evidence & Impact: Maximizing ROI in Professional Learning
  Is your professional learning driving real impact? Learn data-driven strategies to design effective PL.
Content provided by New Teacher Center

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School Choice & Charters Texas Is Poised to Create a Massive Private School Choice Program
The bill’s passage represents a major shift in the state.
budget school funding
iStock/Getty
School Choice & Charters Trump Admin. Tells States, Schools How to Use Title I for School Choice
A letter sent to state education chiefs pointed to two portions of Title I where states and schools can "provide greater flexibility."
4 min read
Image of a neighborhood of school buildings, house, government buildings, and a money symbol in the middle.
Trodler/iStock/Getty
School Choice & Charters Trump's Order Kicks Off His Efforts to Expand Private School Choice
Trump is directing several federal agencies to look into expanding school choice offerings—a push that continues from his first term.
3 min read
President Donald Trump talks as he signs an executive order giving federal recognition to the Limbee Tribe of North Carolina, in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in Washington.
President Donald Trump talks as he signs an executive order giving federal recognition to the Limbee Tribe of North Carolina, in the Oval Office of the White House, Jan. 23, 2025. Trump on Jan. 29 signed an executive order that would mandate a federal push for school vouchers.
Ben Curtis/AP
School Choice & Charters Opinion Teachers Might Embrace Private School Choice. Here's Why
School choice is often discussed in terms of student impact. But what's in it for teachers?
10 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week