from The Maine Heritage Policy Center
Could consolidation lead to MORE school choice?
MHPC has done quite a bit of work to publicize the fact that school choice in Maine is under threat. Is it possible that school choice could be expanded as a result of consolidation?
The Times Record reports that residents of Wiscasset, which is destined to be the only non-choice district in its new RSU, are thinking about extending school choice to their own students. The article is tremdously revealing about the motives of the two sides.
On the side favoring choice, you have this argument:
Smith noted that, with school enrollment falling and no sign the other seven towns would send students or funding to Wiscasset to help combat the dropoff, the high school could continue to wither away. If the disappearance in funding and programs reached severe enough levels, he argued, it would be unfair of the town not to allow its students to seek better educations elsewhere.
"If we can't save the high school, isn't our obligation to the students?" asked Smith.
In other words, for the good of the children, we have to provide the best options available, and if that means closing a school to which kids don't want to go, then so be it.
The argument on the other side is that for the good of the school, we need to avoid giving kids a choice:
However, School Committee Chairman Gene Stover remained worried that opening the door of school choice would exacerbate what he described as the "exodus we're experiencing from Alna and Westport Island."
Alna and Westport Island had already been partnered with Wiscasset before the larger consolidation talks began, but as Smith noted, "one-third of the Westport Island kids choose schools other than Wiscasset due to misconceptions about the quality of our schools."
Allowing Wiscasset's own students to leave, too, argued Stover, would be a bad idea.
"We've got to combat this business of people leaving because of what they perceive as programs that aren't as good as other schools."
I find this line of thinking facsinating. The kids that have choice are voting with their feet and leaving the schools. They are doing so, Mr. Stover suggests, because of "perceptions" that the schools are not that good.
His solution, evidently, is not to deal with the perception issue (or what may be underlying perfomance issues), but simply to use the law to prevent students from leaving.
It says something about how ingrained the public school monopoly model has become that nobody gets worked up about trapping kids in underperforming schools. "So what if kids want to leave - we won't make the school better, we'll just prevent them from leaving."
Someday we'll look back at this era and be amazed that people put up put up with this...
The Times Record reports that residents of Wiscasset, which is destined to be the only non-choice district in its new RSU, are thinking about extending school choice to their own students. The article is tremdously revealing about the motives of the two sides.
On the side favoring choice, you have this argument:
Smith noted that, with school enrollment falling and no sign the other seven towns would send students or funding to Wiscasset to help combat the dropoff, the high school could continue to wither away. If the disappearance in funding and programs reached severe enough levels, he argued, it would be unfair of the town not to allow its students to seek better educations elsewhere.
"If we can't save the high school, isn't our obligation to the students?" asked Smith.
In other words, for the good of the children, we have to provide the best options available, and if that means closing a school to which kids don't want to go, then so be it.
The argument on the other side is that for the good of the school, we need to avoid giving kids a choice:
However, School Committee Chairman Gene Stover remained worried that opening the door of school choice would exacerbate what he described as the "exodus we're experiencing from Alna and Westport Island."
Alna and Westport Island had already been partnered with Wiscasset before the larger consolidation talks began, but as Smith noted, "one-third of the Westport Island kids choose schools other than Wiscasset due to misconceptions about the quality of our schools."
Allowing Wiscasset's own students to leave, too, argued Stover, would be a bad idea.
"We've got to combat this business of people leaving because of what they perceive as programs that aren't as good as other schools."
I find this line of thinking facsinating. The kids that have choice are voting with their feet and leaving the schools. They are doing so, Mr. Stover suggests, because of "perceptions" that the schools are not that good.
His solution, evidently, is not to deal with the perception issue (or what may be underlying perfomance issues), but simply to use the law to prevent students from leaving.
It says something about how ingrained the public school monopoly model has become that nobody gets worked up about trapping kids in underperforming schools. "So what if kids want to leave - we won't make the school better, we'll just prevent them from leaving."
Someday we'll look back at this era and be amazed that people put up put up with this...
2 Comments
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Comment by Stephen Bowen on November 16, 2008 at 9:36am - I think you are right about K-8 choice eventually following consolidation, at least in some places. Charter schools are another matter. I was part of the effort to get charter school legislation enacted a few years ago, (Maine is one of only 10 states without charter schools) and the public school establishment - the school boards, superintendents and teachers' unions - were all adamantly opposed. "Now is not the time to redirect funding away from the schools we have" was the mantra. I think we'll need to get creative about how we could fund charter schools, as the matter of funding will only be more of an issue with the budget cuts that are no doubt coming from Augusta. The public is ready for them, though, I'll bet, given how little improvement we've seen in many school despite spending a state average of $10,000 per student...
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1. Consolidation could lead to elementary and middle school choice. The same criteria that families use in choosing a high school (a school with a better "fit", a higher performing school, a school with a safer climate, the availability of certain programs) should extend to the earlier grades. As it is now, most communities have only one elementary or middle school. After consolidation most RSUs would have several, each with their own unique character. The new RSU board could allow choice knowing that the funds that follow the student would be staying in that district.
2. A larger RSU would be able to create publicly funded charter schools which draw from all of the communities in that RSU. President-Elect Barack Obama has pledged new government funding for such schools and it seems that the policy makers in Augusta are starting to warm to the idea. These charter schools would really open up some interesting choices for students if they provide an education model different from what the current public schools are offering. Imagine an "arts school" or a "classics school" or a school that operates year round.
Just some ideas!