Is School Choice Just Expanding Privilege?
Students who need the most support are not well-served by choice policies.
When my father was 19 years old, he got into a serious car accident. At the time he was a college student studying to be a math teacher. The car accident kept him out of school for several months, and when he was ready to return, the scholarships that allowed him to attend college were no longer available to him.
He and his father went to the bank to take out a $500 loan in order to enroll in classes. The bank denied him the loan, and my father never went back to college ― instead, the bank hired him to work as a teller.
Despite the fact that he went on to be an officer and director in 37 banks throughout the Midwest, he always felt embarrassed when anyone discovered he didn’t have a college degree. To him, being “educated” was a sign of prestige.
My father’s success as a banker allowed him to live in nice homes, drive nice cars, travel the world, and live a very privileged lifestyle, but the one thing that mattered to him most was that his children receive the best possible education. His professional success allowed him to choose where our family would live and he chose Ames, Iowa because of the quality of the public school system. He was able to choose where we went to school, and it was a choice he took very seriously.
In a perfect world, all parents would be able to locate themselves in a neighborhood with a school that meets all of their needs. Those who advocate for “school choice” would have you believe that using tax dollars to build for-profit charter schools and vouchers Is School Choice Just Expanding Privilege? | HuffPost:
