School Leader

Kentucky's charter school future full of uncertainties

Last week Representative John "Bam" Carney, chair of the House Education Committee, introduced House Bill 520, and on Tuesday Governor Bevin held a press conference with Carney and Secretary of Education and Workforce Development Hal Heiner to announce his support. While there will undoubtedly be debates and proposed amendments, the press conference signaled that HB 520 is the charter law Republican leadership is going to champion. It's likely to make Kentucky the 44th state to embrace charter schools.

Or will it? While there is much for school choice supporters to like about HB 520, its authorizing mechanism is such that it can either make Kentucky a model for well-designed and supporter charter schools, or it might kill any meaningful possibility of charter schools at all.

There are things to like about HB 520 for sure. Unlike some earlier proposals for Kentucky charter schools, it does not require a pilot program or limit charters to specific geographical regions. This means that charters could theoretically be started throughout the state - at least in communities where there is enough demand to make this a reasonable possibility. It's hard to imagine an independent charter school being successful in our more rural areas, though it is technically possible, and there are some good models for how this might work from other states. Charters seem more likely in urban and metropolitan areas where the demand is higher and more sustainable. HB 520 also does not limit the number of charters that can be opened, so that increases the possibility of real growth in the charter sector.

The bill requires charter schools to admit students by lottery if enrollment capacity is not exceeded by applications, and charter schools may not use any other admissions requirements, though preference is to be given for students who live within the local district, and schools can also prioritize those who receive free and reduced-price lunch [sentence corrected for accuracy].

The bill does include a requirement that local districts must provide transportation for charter school students to their charter schools. It's good that there is attention to transportation funding, but I would have preferred that the transportation funds just go to the charter school, which could then provide its own mechanisms for transporting students. I worry that this provision will be a real complication for the local school districts. [UPDATE: Dr. Wayne Lewis, who is on loan from the University of Kentucky to the Cabinet for Education and Workforce Development, offers some helpful clarity on the transportation issue here.]

But the potential problem lies in how charter schools would be authorized. HB 520 stipulates that charter applications must be authorized by local boards of education. If a local board turns down a charter application it can be appealed to the state board of education in a complicated process that basically requires the local board to say "no" twice, and then the state board can authorize the charter application, but will serve as co-authorizer with the same district that did not want the charter school in the first place.

In general, I believe that a good charter law would include multiple paths to authorization. Local boards should certainly be authorizers, but charter applications should also be able to go directly to the state board of education, or an independent authorizing commission, or to some other entity like a university. Providing multiple authorizers increases the chances of growing the charter sector quickly throughout the state, with a wider variety of kinds of schools serving a diverse base of students.

Besides the potential limitations in charter growth and diversity, the biggest problem with local boards serving as the only authorizer is that most local boards of education have been vocally opposed to the concept of charter schools to begin with. They view charters as competition because if students choose to leave the district school, some or all of the  education funding would go with them. Looked at this way, having local boards authorize autonomous charter schools is like having Ford authorize new plants for General Motors. There is no natural incentive for them to approve new charters, and lots of pressure from adult forces within the district to stop the authorization of new charters at all costs.

Even with the appeal to the state board of education, the entire process becomes subject to the attitude of state board members. A change in the state board could signal an abrupt stop to all charter growth.

I am told by people who helped craft HB 520 that there are potential complications in case law associated with Kentucky's constitution that would make multiple authorizers difficult. I don't understand all that at this point, as I don't see why funds can't flow to the local district and then be dispersed to a charter school via an independent authorizer. Maybe I will learn more about that in days ahead. Attorney General Andy Beshear has already made noise hinting that he will file suit against any charter bill that becomes law, so courts will probably weigh in on all these matters eventually.

At any rate, if HB 520 becomes law as written, the battle for charter schools will shift to local boards of education, and eventually to the Kentucky Board of Education. Despite the potential limitations, this scenario is not all bad. If local boards of education are approving the contracts (the "charter" from which the schools derive their name) that govern new schools, they cannot claim that charter schools will operate without sufficient oversight and accountability. For example, HB 520 includes a provision for virtual charter schools. Like many educators, I have some concerns about virtual charters because their performance and management in other states has traditionally be quite poor. But local boards can stipulate any accountability and oversight measures into the charter for such schools before authorizing them. HB 520 might give local board of education too much power in this regard, but it certainly eliminates the complaint from local districts that charter schools aren't accountable to anyone.

A move in this direction could actually set the stage for a real shift in the role of local boards of education, if board members will embrace the opportunity. I believe that all schools should have more charter-like autonomy. I look forward to the day, described eloquently in Paul T. Hill and Ashley Jochim's excellent little book, A Democratic Constitution for Public Education, when the role of local boards of education is not to essentially run local schools, but rather to authorize a set of autonomous schools of choice, that are answerable back to that board in terms of student performance, financial accountability, etc. It's a shift in the role of the board, to be sure, but one that is no less invested in the well-being and success of students. 

If local and state board members begin to see that their duty is not to prop up the various institutions of education delivery (whether effective or ineffective) but rather to serve students and to support a multitude of options that can best meet those students' needs, then charter schools have a chance to thrive in Kentucky regardless of the details in HB 520.

Update, 3/6/17: On Friday, March 3, the Kentucky House of Representatives passed HB 520, amending it to remove virtual charter schools from consideration ("format" delivery combining face-to-face and online learning is still permissible), and making the mayors of Lexington and Louisville potential authorizers. The bill moves on to the Senate Education committee for consideration.

Update, 3/27/17: HB 520 ultimately passed both houses of the state legislature and was quietly signed by Governor Bevin last week. Now we move into phase of writing regulations and beginning implementation. This summary of the situation nicely captures my own hopes - and concerns - for the future.

Image: The Kentucky School Choice Rally was held in Frankfort on  January 27, 2017.

Usual disclaimer: All opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone and do not reflect the views of Western Kentucky University (where I work) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).

Related posts:

• A School Choice Primer, Part I
• A School Choice Primer, Part II
• A School Choice Primer, Part III
• Kentucky School Choice Rally: text (and video) of my comments
• A visit to two charter schools
• Baby steps for school choice

 

A School Choice Primer, Part III

Image Above: Parents and teachers blessing students at St. Joseph School, Bowling Green, on opening day 2015. School choice programs like scholarship tax credits would enable more low-income students to attend schools like St. Joseph.

In this series of posts I've attempted to explain in a straightforward way the basic argument for why the government should not have a monopoly on education delivery, and the kinds of policy options that give parents more choices in where their children attend school. In this final post I'd like to address some of the most common questions and objections that are raised about school choice.

Won't school choice policies drain money from already-needy public schools?

As I've written before, this concern only makes sense if you assume that government schools should have a monopoly on educational delivery. If you assume, instead, that education dollars should flow to the school of each student's choice, then it makes no sense to say that such a choice "drains" money from the school that isn't chosen. We have two hospitals here in Bowling Green. We don't say that we are "draining money" from the Medical Center because a Medicare patient chooses to use her benefit for a procedure at Greenview Hospital. We don't think that way because we don't care which hospital she uses as long as she is getting quality health care. Medicare is designed to provide health care access for the elderly, not to prop up the operations of one hospital over another.

That said, if we introduced school choice into our current system, and if students did choose to leave their assigned district school, then certainly those would not be dollars that would continue to be held by those schools. If very large numbers of students left their assigned school, this could obviously create a problem for the school being left, but a mass exodus would indicate that parents are seriously dissatisfied with the education their children are receiving. It would be a sign that something dramatic needs to change in that school.

Nevertheless, that's not what tends to happen in reality. Certainly some students do leave their assigned school when choice is introduced, but the numbers tend to be small enough that the net financial result is a positive one for taxpayers. Schools of choice typically educate students at a lower per pupil cost than district schools, meaning more money is left over for district schools or in public coffers.

Wouldn't private school choice potentially violate the separation of church and state?

First, it's important to note that the words "separation of church and state" appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, even though this term was sometimes used by some of the Framers in their discussions about the First Amendment. Rather, that Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion." Jurists have long argued about what this actually means, but in the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the court ruled that Cleveland's voucher program, which included faith-based schools, does not violate the Establishment Clause. The majority's rationale was that the Establishment Clause requires the state to take a neutral position toward religion, and that the Cleveland voucher program maintained neutrality because the state provided the voucher benefit directly to families, who were then responsible for deciding which kind of school their child would attend. The state did not favor religious schools over non-religious schools or vice versa in the application of the voucher program. I would equate this policy to the federal Pell grant program, which provides financial assistance for low-students to attend the university of their choice, including private, faith-based options. The benefit is for the student; the state is neutral in regards to where that benefit is used.

Nevertheless, many states have constitutional provisions that go farther than the U.S. Constitution in prohibiting the flow of public funds to faith-based K-12 schools. Section 189 of the Kentucky Constitution does this explicitly, meaning that a voucher program would be difficult to pass a legal challenge here. This is why charter schools and scholarship tax credits (both discussed in my previous post) are the most likely and promising school choice mechanisms in Kentucky.

What does the research say about school choice and student achievement?

Many empirical studies have been conducted using a variety of methods to analyze the impact of school choice on student learning. The general consensus from the best of these studies is that low-income students and students of color tend to outperform their demographically similar peers in traditional public schools when they attend choice schools. Of course, one can find exceptional studies that contradict this general trend. Each study has to be evaluated on its own merits and based on the context involved. What matters to me is the general trend in the research, which strongly indicates that when choice is introduced, student learning increases not just for students who select to attend schools of choice, but also for the students who stay behind in traditional public schools. No one has demonstrated exactly why this happens, but it stands to reason that a bit of competition causes all schools to step up their game.

But won't school choice lead to segregated schools?

Schools of choice are generally prohibited from making admissions decisions using race as a consideration. But what appears to usually happen is that students of color tend to move from more segregated schools to less segregated schools, further contributing to the diversity of the schools of choice themselves - just the opposite of more racial separation.

But wouldn't school choice cause a deeper fracturing of society into like-minded enclaves? What about the idea that public schools are a socially and politically unifying force?

Where is the evidence that government-run schooling leads to more social unity? In fact, the evidence is overwhelming that when the government has a monopoly on education, we get more intense and ugly battles for control of the system itself as every faction must politically dominate the system to bend it to its agenda and desired ends. What research actually suggests is that students who attend choice schools demonstrate greater lifetime levels of social tolerance and civic engagement than their peers educated in traditional public schools. So no, school choice does not cause social fragmentation. In fact, it responds in a positive way to the fragmented nature of modern American culture.

Would schools of choice be required to serve students with disabilities?

Perhaps. You could certainly write school choice policies in a way that would require schools of choice to do so. But that might not actually be in the interests of students with disabilities themselves. Generally, schools of choice are highly reluctant to turn away potential students since their entire operation depends on enrollment. But a small private school might find it impossible to meet all of the requirements of federal special education law. Nevertheless, parents of a student with a disability might still want to choose such a school because it is a better fit for their child. A family should not be denied their choice of schools if they are willing to select a school that is not fully compliant with the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). And, in fact, many such families do and as I noted in my previous post, many choice policies apply specifically to students with disabilities.

Likewise, some schools might specialize in meeting the needs of certain students with disabilities. If a school specializes in dyslexia, for example, should parents be denied the opportunity to send their dyslexic child to this school simply because it isn't equipped to also deal with severe autism spectrum disorders? The bottom line is that school choice broadens learning opportunities for all students, including those with disabilities.

How do we ensure that schools of choice are high quality?

How do we ensure that traditional public schools are of high quality? How do we ensure that automobiles sold in the United States are safe? Accountability systems of various sorts would remain in a school choice environment. Regulation would be necessary to ensure a mechanism for dealing with fraud and perpetually low student achievement. Let's have arguments about what those accountability and monitoring systems would look like, instead of whether we should give low-income families a choice at all.

What happens to students who stay behind in low-performing public schools?

As we've said earlier, the general trend is that student achievement improves in such schools when choice is introduced, and local districts are often left with more resources per pupil to meet those students' needs.

What if some parents don't care enough or aren't educated enough to exercise choice?

Mechanisms to help parents be knowledgeable about their options would need to be created. But I want caution us against assuming that poor parents are too ignorant to make choices for their children. There is a kind of dark paternalism at work in this assumption. And at any rate, should we deny all poor families a choice in who educates their children just because some of them won't exercise a choice? Some families struggle to make good health care choices as well, but as of yet we don't deny them such choices where available.

What if parents don't have transportation to take full advantage of school choice?

There is evidence that choice is sometimes limited based on the ability of parents to transport their children. Of course one way to address this is to ensure that generous transportation funding is included in the amount of money that follows each child to his/her school of choice. Transportation is one of those reasons that makes school choice a much more viable policy in urban or metropolitan areas. But that should not be a reason to oppose school choice. I would like to occasionally eat at a Five Star restaurant here in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Because of market forces we don't have such a restaurant here and likely never will. But that doesn't mean Five Star restaurants should be banned in communities that could support such an establishment, right?

Can't we just give parents a choice among public schools?

Certainly, and we should (see my discussion of open enrollment policies in my last post). Many public school districts are now experimenting with innovation academies, magnet schools of various sorts, and intra-district transfer policies. These are all good. But giving parents a choice among schools all run by the local district is like saying you can only buy your shoes at Target, but you can get boots, sneakers, sandals, etc. It's great to have those choices, but you should be able to also buy your shoes from another store if that's your wish. Our current education system says you can buy your shoes wherever you want - as long as you are affluent. If you're poor - you only get Target (or some other vendor - but no others).

What makes you think school choice is the silver bullet solution to all our education problems?

I don't, and I don't know any school choice supporter who thinks that. For a variety of reasons, the local district schools are going to continue to be the schools of choice for the vast majority of students. Schools of all kinds are going to need on-going improvement and support in their curriculum, teaching, and assessment. Effective leadership is essential to schools of all kinds. Education funding in general is probably insufficient for the challenges our schools are facing.

There is and will remain much work to be done to ensure high quality schools for all students, whether public, charter, parochial, or independent. In fact, I'd really enjoy moving forward with that work, but I'm finding I'm spending a large amount of time defending the idea that all parents, regardless of income or ZIP code, should have access to that full range of schools. I hope this primer has helped to advance us toward that time when we can stop arguing about whether all families should have access to a wide array of schools, and focus instead on ensuring that all of those options truly are great.

Other posts in this series:

• A School Choice Primer, Part I
• A School Choice Primer, Part II

Usual disclaimer: Views expressed on this blog are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of Western Kentucky University (where I work) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).

 

A School Choice Primer, Part II

In the first part of this three-part primer on school choice, I explained the basic philosophy that education dollars should generally follow students to the schools of their families' choices instead of flowing directly to a network of government owned and operated schools that essentially functions as a monopoly on educational delivery for most families. I supported school choice based on three basic arguments: that school choice has the potential to improve education effectiveness, that it is fairer to low-income families, and that it is more consistent with the way we provide other highly-personalized public services.

In this post I'd like to explore the variety of school choice policies and discuss what they might look like in Kentucky's context. I'd also refer readers to a new resource from the Education Commission of the States called A School Choice Glossary that describes some of these policies as they are enacted in various states.

What are the various policy approaches for providing school choice?

School choice policies take about five basic forms: charter schools, vouchers, education savings accounts, tuition scholarship tax credits, and open district enrollment.

Charter schools. A charter school is a school that is usually run independently from the local school district. They are usually managed by a non-profit entity (87% of charter schools nationwide are run by a non-profit operator). Some of these operators are large chains of schools like the highly-regarded Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) network. Others are stand-alone schools started by neighborhood groups, parents, or teachers. Currently 43 states and the District of Columbia have some form of charter schools.

Charter schools may not charge tuition, and must be open to all students who wish to attend from within boundaries established under the various state charter laws. Usually, if the number of applicants to attend a charter school exceeds its enrollment capacity, a lottery system is used to accept new students as openings become available. Because they are independent, charter schools are freed from many of the onerous regulations, labor contracts, and oversight of normal district schools. This allows charter schools a high level of flexibility in meeting student needs, and allows them to offer innovative approaches to curriculum, scheduling, and instructional methods.

In exchange for their autonomy, charter schools face a heightened level of accountability in that, if they fail to meet the performance goals laid out in the contract (charter) that governs the school, they can be shut down. Additionally, some state laws have closure provisions that dictate certain levels of improvement or continuous achievement for all charters, regardless of the details of their individual charter.

When a student enrolls in a charter school, some portion of education dollars follows the student to that school. The amount differs from state to state. At a minimum, the state per pupil spending allocation typically follows the student, along with any federal funds that would apply to the child. Locally-generated education tax dollars may or may not follow. Transportation and facilities funding sometimes applies, but this is more rare. Usually, charter schools operate at a lower per pupil funding rate than traditional schools, creating operational challenges. In a recent post I described my visit to two Nashville charter schools. In Tennessee, only about two-thirds of the per pupil funds received by district schools follows students to a charter school. The rest must be generated through fundraising since tuition cannot be charged.

Charter school legislation has been passed by the Republican-controlled Kentucky Senate for several consecutive years only to be immediately stopped in the Democrat-majority House of Representatives. But with the GOP takeover of the House in November 2016, a charter bill is expected to be adopted and signed by Governor Bevin this year. At the time of this writing, two charter bills have been introduced but neither is expected to generate widespread support within the majority caucus. The Republican leadership of the House and Senate are expected to introduce another bill any day now. Update: In March 2017 the General Assembly adopted Kentucky's first charter school law, making local schools districts and (if they wish to do so) the mayors of Lexington and Louisville sole authorizors.

Vouchers. The first modern voucher plan was enacted in Milwaukee in 1989 and today 13 states and the District Columbia provide voucher plans to eligible students. Typically, a voucher is a publicly-funded scholarship of a fixed amount that an eligible student's family may apply toward private school tuition. Student eligibility varies across states, but usually applies to low-income families or students with disabilities. Some voucher plans apply to students who would otherwise be assigned to a persistently-low achieving school.

The amount of the voucher may or may not cover the entire cost of tuition at a private school. Families may make up the difference with their own funds or through other, private scholarship sources. States vary in terms of the kinds of accountability measures schools must meet to be eligible for participation. Some critics of vouchers contend that public money should never flow to faith-based schools. I'll say more about this later when I discuss issues of "church and state separation," but will just briefly say that in the 2002 case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Cleveland voucher plan (which is fairly typical in how voucher plans work) does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. However, some state constitutions are more explicit in their prohibitions about public funds and religious schools, making vouchers legally problematic in those jurisdictions. Kentucky is one of those states.

Education savings accounts. Sometimes abbreviated ESA's, an education savings account functions similarly to a voucher, but is more directly in control of parents, who may use a fix amount of public dollars placed in the account for educational expenses including private school tuition, tutoring or therapeutic services, or sometimes homeschooling expenses. Five states have some form of ESA's now, and usually students are eligible based on income or disability. Nevada, however, has adopted the nation's most sweeping ESA, permitting any family who transfers their child from their assigned public school to use an ESA for obtaining educational services regardless of income or other eligibility requirement. Like vouchers, ESA's appear to be legal under the U.S. Constitution but may not pass constitutional muster in some states.

Tuition scholarship tax credits. This approach to school choice differs from those previously described in that it relies primarily on private donations to fund scholarships that eligible students may apply toward private school tuition. Currently 14 states provide such credits, which incentivize personal or corporate donations to various tuition-support programs. Normally, a donor to charity may only count some portion of the donation as a deduction on income taxes. A tax credit gives a dollar-for-dollar credit, up to an amount established in state law, off the donor's total tax liability. In some states the credit is worth up to 100% of the amount of the donation. However, credits are typically non-refundable meaning that a donor could not actually get a tax refund based on the donation.

Critics still charge that by lowering taxes for donors to such programs money is "drained" from state coffers that would otherwise be there (I'll discuss the impact of school choice on public finance later), but scholarship tax credits tend to enjoy more bipartisan support than vouchers because they do not rely on the direct transfer of public funds to non-public schools and avoid the stickier issues of church-state separation (Update: research suggests that scholarship tax credits have a fiscally neutral or even positive impact by lowering overall education costs to the state when students when students switch to private schools) . At least that has been the case in Kentucky where such legislation has been introduced with bipartisan sponsorship for the last two years. This year's bill is HB 162/SB 102 and is expected to receive a hearing in the House later this month. (Disclosure: I serve on the board of directors for EdChoice Kentucky, a citizens group that is actively supporting this measure in the Kentucky General Assembly). Update: Scholarship tax credits were not passed during the 2017 General Assembly but have been reintroduced as proposed legislation in the 2018 session.

Open district enrollment. Sometimes called inter-district transfer, this is the idea that students should be able to attend any public school, within or outside their assigned district, and state education dollars should follow them to their schools of choice. Currently Kentucky allows school districts to negotiate voluntary agreements for such transfers, but open enrollment would establish a statewide policy. Fourteen states currently have such systems of "mandatory" open enrollment.

In his comments to the Kentucky Board of Education today, Secretary of Education and Workforce Development Hal Heiner called on policy-makers to adopt such an approach. Our current system of negotiated agreements gives too much power to districts that want to restrict the opportunity for students to attend school elsewhere, all so that they can hold on to the state education dollars assigned to those children. No legislation creating open enrollment has been filed at this point but the state board agreed to continue its discussions on the matter.

Each of the school choice policies described above differs in its structure and can vary widely from state to state. There is plenty to debate about how specific policies ought to be implemented in Kentucky. But all of these approaches - in so far as they can be supported under the state constitution - are worthy of consideration as mechanisms for expanding education options, especially for our most vulnerable families.

In my next post I'll address some of the most frequently asked questions (and criticisms) of school choice, including its impact on traditional public schools, student achievement, issues of church and state separation, and more.

Image: Over 500 people attended the School Choice Week Rally in Frankfort on January 27, 2017.

Usual disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not reflect the views of Western Kentucky University (my employer) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).

Other posts in this series:

• A School Choice Primer, Part I
• A School Choice Primer, Part III

A School Choice Primer, Part I

This semester I'm teaching courses on school law and education policy, and the topic of school choice has quickly surfaced, not just because of its relevance to the classes but also its prominence in the news. The nomination of Betsy DeVos for U.S. Secretary of Education and the Kentucky legislature's first meaningful possibility of passing a charter school law and scholarship tax credits has nearly everyone talking about school choice. But what I've found is that many people, especially Kentucky's rank and file teachers, are largely unaware of what school choice is, how such policies would work, and why they might be good for students and families.

In a three-part series of posts, I'd like to offer a primer on this topic and address the most common questions people ask about school choice. Of course my point of view is biased. I'm a long-time advocate for expanding education options. But I'm well aware of the criticisms of the idea, and fairly well-versed in the research, and so hopefully readers can explore the topic further based on what I present here and make an independent judgment about my conclusions. I think it's important to note that I write as someone who is a career-long advocate for strong public schools, having served as a teacher and administrator in several Kentucky districts, and in my current role I train teachers who aspire to be the next generation of great public school leaders. My service on the Kentucky Board of Education since last June speaks to my commitment to high-quality education for all students.

In this first post, I want to address the basic arguments for school choice. In follow-up posts, I'll describe what the most common school choice policies look like, discuss the most frequently-heard concerns about school choice related to their financial impact on public schools, issues related to "separation of church and state," and other aspects of the school choice debate. [Update: Part II is now posted here].

What is school choice?

School choice is the idea that while education is a public good and should be generously funded, education tax dollars should be allocated to follow each student to the school of his or her family's choice. In other words, instead of sending education funding directly to a network of government-run and operated school districts that are charged with providing education services to all families within a geographic area, funds would flow to families themselves, who could then use that funding to obtain education services from a wide variety of providers, which might include the local public school district, but might also include independently run charter schools, private schools, or other nearby public schools that aren't necessarily within the family's attendance zone.

But we've always had this kind of system. Why change it now?

Actually, we haven't always had this system. Ashley Rogers Berner's new book, Pluralism and American Public Education: No One Way to School, documents the great variety of ways that American communities educated children up until the mid-to-late 1800's. So there is plenty of historical precedence for a different approach. Plus, as I'll document below, many other states have already adopted a wide range of school choice policies.

But in terms of why it's time to make that change, there are three basic and inter-related arguments. The first one is practical: the current system doesn't work as well as it should and might be more effective with the added element of parental choice. The second argument is one of fairness: the current system is unjust toward l0w-income families. And the third argument is one of logical consistency: education should be like other public services that require a high-degree of personalization.

The effectiveness argument. Our current education system functions basically like a government-run monopoly for most families. The local school district provides education for the students in its jurisdiction, and most families have no other choice in who educates their children. But monopolies usually don't work very well, for three main reasons.

First, a monopolistic system has to tend toward one-size-fits-all services because it is charged with meeting the needs of every client, and it cannot possible know or be responsive to their myriad preferences, choices, and needs; no school, no matter how good, can address the needs of every single child and we put an unfair burden on public school teachers by asking them to do so.

Second, because it tends toward one-size-fits-all solutions, and because clients can't generally leave if they are unsatisfied with their services (unless they have enough money to exercise other options - see below), a monopoly tends to be highly inefficient and lacks a spirit of innovation and creativity; change comes extremely slowly, if at all, as employees invested in the status quo use the bureaucratic structures of the system to prevent inconveniences and meaningful change.

And third, to ensure any level of quality in such a system, complex and rigid accountability structures have to be put into place (sound familiar, educators?). This is unlike a normal, market-driven enterprise which would simply close if it became inefficient and unresponsive to client needs and demands. And even under such byzantine accountability structures, quality remains lackluster (so we have tiny, slow, incremental improvements in student outcomes that will never meet the fast-changing demands of the global economy).

Kentucky has made academic gains that we should be genuinely proud of, including improving our high school graduation rates, college-and-career readiness rates, and overall elementary and middle school performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). I don't believe that overall state-to-state comparisons in education are usually very valid (here's why), so I'm not particularly interested in how Kentucky allegedly compares to other states, but I do think we should celebrate the progress we've made. But our rate of improvement, however real, is not sufficient to keep up with the huge economic and cultural demands our schools are currently facing.

Richard Innes, education analyst for the Bluegrass Institute, has calculated how long it would take for Kentucky's fourth and eighth graders to reach just 80% proficiency in reading and math, based on our current rates of improvement (disclosure: I serve on the Bluegrass Institute's Board of Scholars). What Mr. Innes discovered is downright frightening. As the table below demonstrates, we won't see 80% of eighth graders proficient in math for another 126 years.

When you consider our historically under-achieving populations, the numbers are even more disturbing. Kentucky's rate of reading improvement for African American eighth graders is so slow it will take 277 years to reach just 80 percent proficiency.

These kinds of numbers convince me that our government-run monopoly on education is not working as well as it should for many students, and is downright awful in its neglect of our neediest children. We would be negligent not to consider every possible alternative for accelerating student learning opportunities. (And in a follow-up post I'll discuss what research says actually happens to student achievement when choice is introduced).

The fairness argument. Affluent families already have school choice. Because of their greater financial resources, they can afford to rent or buy homes in the districts or school zones with the best public schools, or to send their children to tuition-based schools. Low-income families lack these opportunities. And because they are more likely to rent, low-income families indirectly pay their landlord's property taxes without enjoying any of the tax benefits of home ownership, so they actually shoulder a disproportionate financial burden in supporting the education system but often are confined to the lowest-performing schools. This is patently unjust.

The consistency argument. There are public services that require little to no personalization. One size can indeed fit all when it comes to police and fire protection. But education is different. Every child is unique and every family's aspirations are different. In this way, education is like health care. We provide Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the low-income because we want quality health care access for all. But we don't stipulate which doctor or hospital Medicare and Medicaid patients must use because such decisions are highly personal. Likewise, we don't make food stamp recipients shop at government-run grocery stores. But perhaps the best example are higher education programs like Pell grants and the GI Bill, which students can use to attend the university of their own choice, whether public or private. Our goal is to increase education access for low-income students and veterans. Where they obtain their education is of lesser importance to us, though obviously there are regulations governing how universities can participate in these programs.

It is only in K-12 education that we deny low-income families a choice in what is perhaps the most important and personal of all decisions: who will educate their children and how.

In my next post I'll begin by describing some specific ways that policy makers have expanded educational choices for families, and what these ideas would look like in Kentucky's policy context, including charter schools, vouchers, education savings accounts, scholarship tax credits, and open district enrollment.

Additional posts in this series:

• A School Choice Primer, Part II
• A School Choice Primer, Part III

Usual disclaimer: Views expressed on this blog are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of Western Kentucky University (my employer) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).