Who Gains Most From School Choice? Not Low-Income Students Of Color
As parents and students reenter public schools for a new year, they’re hearing a lot about “school choice.”
Having “choice,” they’re told, lets parents send their kids to schools other than their assigned neighborhood school, such as a charter school, a magnet school, or, in some cases, even a school in another district.
No doubt school choice will benefit some parents – just as any market-based system has some winners and some losers. But who really stands to gain most from choice and why?
“We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice,” Republican Presidential candidateDonald Trump declared at the Republican National Convention. Reporters at Education Week have noticed Trump’s campaign is “increasing focus”on the subject, and recently hired a policy expert, with a background in crafting education policy in Indiana, to “work on school choice issues.”
Although Trump is often known to stray from Republican orthodoxy, his positions on school choice are aligned completely with mainstream Republicans, such as Jeb Bush, who believe school choice creates a market-based education system, similar to commercial goods, where competition can improve product quality and consumer experience.
Democrats also pitch school choice as a policy prescription that will solve the problem of educating low-income black and brown children.
Specifically, this week The Atlantic has an interesting video report on how the Obama administration is advancing school choice as a solution to racially integrate public schools, and thereby give non-white school children access to the same education opportunities white students get.
Reporter Alia Wong explains how American schools are now more segregated than they were 50 years ago. Even though federally mandated integration policies, such as forced bussing of students to create more racially diverse schools, led to substantially better outcomes for all Who Gains Most From School Choice? Not Low-Income Students Of Color: