Coming from a private school perspective and familiar with schooling in Europe, where school choice is a way of life, I'm looking to understand the issues around "school choice" as it exists here in the United States. I feel comfortable in this class asking this question that would otherwise go unanswered for me.
During our last class, Dr. Ries reacted in surprise to the idea of paying even $5,000 for K-12 private schooling. She felt that it was expensive. I couldn't agree more!!! This leads to the question of "school choice" in general as it exists here in the United States. When a student moves out of a school district, the money goes with the child.
This scenario is how I feel and would like to understand the issue of choice:
Social security is collected from our paychecks. That money is used for our retirement.
Imagine once you retire you can move into free housing which is funded by those monthly social security checks. If you decide to not live in the free housing, you can't have your social security checks each month and have to pay out of pocket for your own housing.
As someone who pays a lot of taxes (close to $30k per year) it would have been nice to be able to use the money allocated to my children at the public school (while they were school age) to offset the costs of private school tuition. Now that they are in college, I don't mind supporting the public schools in my town. However, I felt while they were in school, I had no choice. I had to support the free public school even though my child did not attend. While we technically left the district, the money did not move with my children to their private school but stayed within the district.
I love to learn and understand things from different perspectives, so I'm hoping we can have a discussion on school choice.
Rosalie is going to clarify her question that is highlighted in green when we get to class this week. Then we can have a discussion and, if you wish, you may comment before NEXT week. ER
I believe that school choice would put more pressure on school’s performance even within a district. It may benefit children who’s family cannot otherwise afford a higher-performing school. Also, a student’s talent can be better supported at a choice school which offers better opportunities and will enhance their talents.
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