Vouchers aiding resegregation
Surest way to keep public schools strong is to keep them diverse
Kristina Frey is president of the Washington Township Schools Parent Council in Marion County. She holds an MBA from Northwestern University and is working toward a degree from the Robert H. McKinney Indiana University School of Law. She is a parent to a 7-year-old daughter.
As a proud public school parent, I recently testified before the Indiana House Education Committee to share a parent’s perspective on vouchers. I was asked derisively by an incredulous representative, “Why (are you) so against taxpaying parents having a choice in their taxpayer-funded education?” As a taxpaying parent myself, it is because I have seen personally how this so-called “choice” plays out in my own neighborhood.
I am a white, upper-middle-class parent of a second-grader, and I do something that has become quite rare in our state, to the detriment of our collective future.
I send my precious daughter to a public school that is majority-black, with a free and reduced lunch rate of more than 75 percent. I love our neighborhood school, and my daughter is getting a fantastic education there.
Yet I find myself constantly defending my daughter’s wonderful school and school district. The perpetuation of the myth of failing public schools, combined with the always-expanding availability of charter schools and vouchers, has caused my neighbors to hesitate to send their children to our absolutely amazing, high-quality neighborhood school.
I know that schools are stronger when they are supported by their community, and that communities are stronger when they support their schools, and that is the kind of community I want to live in. I also know that one of the very best ways to improve test scores is to have socioeconomic and racial diversity in schools, and because of that, it rips me apart when I see my middle-class neighbors opting out of our neighborhood school.
I am also concerned with educational stability, which is an important factor in student success. Charter schools and voucher schools, with the encouragement of our legislature, have pushed a culture of endless “school-shopping” in our community.
This session, a bill is on the verge of passing that will even encourage changing of schools in the middle of the school year. I know so many stories of parents who have pulled their children out of their public school to send them to a voucher school, sure that a private school must be better. In some cases, they end up sorely disappointed. Which leads them to pull their child out again, and start over yet again. What is that doing to our children?
When I’m not happy with something at my daughter’s school, I get involved, I talk to the teachers and administrators, and I work through it. I don’t run away. Don’t we teach our children that they should work through challenges, to use critical thinking to solve problems? We don’t teach them to run away to the other side where the grass looks greener.
And this “run away” attitude brings me to the biggest reason I oppose school “choice” and passionately support my local public schools. The reality of our society is that middle-class white families are using the guise of school “choice” to run away from people who don’t look like them. Washington Township is a diverse place, and hardly a bastion of conservatism. Yet even here, I have had neighbors tell me that they chose a private school over our neighborhood school because they were uncomfortable with their child being one of only a few white children in a class.
I have had neighbors tell me that if they aren’t permitted by administration to go to one of the whiter, wealthier schools in the district, that they might move to a different county rather than send their child to the same school that I happily send my child to each day (which is in the same district and only 2 miles from their preferred school).
Multiple studies have shown that school vouchers actually increase segregation. Data from our own state show that as qualifications for vouchers have expanded, the biggest growth has come from white, middle-class families. The sad reality is that, as a society, we still tend toward segregation, and everyone should oppose any policy that further re-segregates our schools.
My neighborhood school is doing an excellent job. Imagine if all the middle-class children who should, by geography, be attending our school actually did attend, rather than fleeing for richer, whiter, pastures. Socioeconomic diversity is proven to increase test scores – it pulls up the scores of the poorest children, while not hurting the scores of the wealthiest children.
The very best way for all of the schools in our state to improve, is to encourage them to reflect accurately the diversity of their communities. Vouchers and charter schools are creating just the opposite of that result. It’s time for middle-class parents, especially white ones, to strongly support our public schools. Vouchers aiding resegregation | Opinion columns | www.journalgazette.net: