Can school choice help raise children?

One of the most vexing issues in education policy is what to do with students whose home life is holding them back academically. No matter how good teachers are, they can’t overcome many issues at home that affect student performance. Students who live with a guardian or one parent, for example, are more likely to repeat a grade level or get suspended.

Now, an expert is suggesting school choice as one way to help students who come from difficult backgrounds.

“The most promising social policy for combating the effects of family background, then, could well be the expansion of programs that allow families to choose schools without regard to their neighborhood of residence,” says Anna Egalite, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, in an article for Education Next. Egalite says small schools of choice have been successful at improving student learning in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles and New Orleans. “Policies that place schools at center stage have the potential to disrupt the cycle of economic disadvantage to ensure that children born into poverty aren’t excluded from the American dream.”

Small schools of choice help students develop a sense of community relationships. “Helping students to cultivate dense networks of social relationships better equips them to handle life’s challenges and is particularly vital given the disintegration of many social structures today,” Egalite writes. Any challenges presented by growing up in a difficult background could be overcome with help from others in the school’s social network.

Teachers’ unions often call for more government spending on public schools, to make them the centers of communities. Egalite seems to suggest similarly that schools can be community centers, but by breaking them down into smaller groups with more in common. “A small school of choice also engenders a voluntary community that comes together over strong ties and shared values,” writes Egalite. Contrast that with the one-size-fits-all approach of public schools.

“Schools alone can’t level the vast inequalities that students bring to the schoolhouse door,” Egalite writes. “But a combination of school programs, social services, community organizations, and civil society could make a major difference.

Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

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