When parents across the country vote with their feet and remove their children from traditional district schools in search of better educational options, maybe it is time for our leaders to step up and allow educators with a vision to provide more high-quality choices within their own neighborhoods.
It is now well known that public “district” schools in urban centers around the U.S. are experiencing an exodus of students. As Chalkbeat reports, Los Angeles County, Cook County (the heartbeat of Chicago), and Manhattan alike have all experienced substantial drops in student enrollment recently, particularly among young students.
State constitutions typically require children to be in school from age 5 to age 16 or 18. But compulsory schooling should not lead to children being trapped in unsafe or academically underperforming schools without any option to chart a better way.
The concept of compulsory education is universal, but the ability for all to choose a school that works for their own child is not. School choice already exists for middle- and upper-income families everywhere — at least in practice if not in law.
Middle- and upper-income families generally have the financial means to enroll their children in private or parochial schools or move to neighborhoods with high-quality public schools. That is not the case for those who need a high-quality education the most — low-income children, for whom access to a great school represents an escape valve to a better life. These students are usually consigned to their neighborhood school, no matter the school’s success or failure in preparing its students to flourish in life.
One of the most surreal experiences in my time as a public charter school leader has been the annual lottery, in which thousands of parents compete for only a few hundred open spots in our school network. Each year, we had to tell nearly 5,000 parents that their child was not granted what should be a basic right: the ability to attend a good school.
In 2019, the New York Post ran a front-page story documenting one of our wait-listed parents and her son. Next to her full-page picture was the headline “Let my son in!” This parent was frustrated with the artificial cap that New York placed on charter schools, a cap that prevented the opening of new quality schools in low-income communities with manifestly failing traditional public schools. She was not alone. Nationwide, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, charter schools serve 3.4 million students. And millions more would attend a charter school if there were enough spaces available.
It does not have to be this way. State legislators should allow charter schools and other options to meet parental demand and give families the opportunity to choose excellent schools for their children through policies such as educational savings accounts. Arizona was the first state to implement an ESA program, and it recently enacted a massive expansion.
With its new provisions, every one of the 1.1 million students in Arizona families who participate would receive more than $6,500 per year per child for private school, homeschooling, religious schools, micro schools, tutoring, or any other kinds of educational service that helps meet the needs of their students outside the traditional public school system.
States can also offer tuition vouchers to low-income students who wish to attend a private school. Wisconsin and the District of Columbia have some of the nation’s most expansive voucher programs. Low-income families in these states are eligible for up to $10,000 each year in private-school tuition support.
States preferring a more indirect form of support can implement “tuition tax credit” programs. Families that send their child to a private school or homeschool receive a tax break of, say, $5,000. These tax credits can be made fully refundable (families would receive the credit even when they do not owe any taxes) in order to maximize their effect for low-income families. While no states currently offer a tuition tax credit program for families who choose an alternate educational path for their children, some do offer tax relief for these families. Minnesota, for example, considers private-school tuition tax deductible.
In his Forbes essay “School Choice is the Only Way to Save Education,” DePaul University professor David D’Amato wrote, “If we want better schools — schools that fulfill their duties by providing a quality education at reasonable cost — we need choice, competition and the accountability they engender.” This new wave of educational freedom sweeping across the country — school choice programs that fund students and not systems — holds promise to offer families nothing more than the equal opportunity to send their children to a great school.
Ian Rowe is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power.
