SCHOOL choice is currently topping the list of what's "in" for
education reform in the 1990s. Championed by President Bush and
embraced by liberals and conservatives alike, "choice" has the
appealing ring of a fundamental freedom.
"It resonates politically," says Michael Alves, an educational
consultant who helped design a choice program in Cambridge, Mass.
(see story Page 13).
The best way to foster reform, proponents of the policy say, is
to level the educational playing field by offering more parents the
chance to choose the school best suited for their child.
Public-school choice has been gaining momentum in a number of states
for years. Recent developments suggest a growing interest in
expanding choice to include private schools also.
Wealthy parents have always had the option of moving into a good
school district or putting their kids in private schools if
dissatisfied with the public institutions. The choice movement aims
to give parents of modest means the same ability to "vote with their
"More and more school districts are recognizing that traditional
schools don't work for all kids and are developing new kinds of
options," says Joe Nathan, senior fellow at the University of
Minnesota Hubert H. Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs and author
of "Public Schools by Choice."
For decades, alternative schools and magnet schools have provided
a variety of settings for a select group of students. The choice
movement's new twist is an emphasis on marketplace principles.
Choice advocates argue that free-market competition drives
educational improvement and promotes accountability. With the
introduction of competition, schools that don't attract students
will be forced to either shape up or shut down.
More than 30 states now have some type of choice incorporated in
the public school systems (see boxed story). In its full range of
forms, the policy of school choice is variously lauded as an
effective desegregation method, a powerful catalyst for reform, and
a more equitable, efficient means of organization.
But opponents contend that inferior schools would simply become
holding pens for students with special needs or those not accepted
elsewhere for any number of reasons. The staunchest resisters of
choice view the policy as an effort to undermine public education.
The agenda for some choice advocates is to get government out of
the direct provision of public education and to gain public support
for private schools, says Richard Elmore, professor of education at
Harvard University's Graduate School of Education in Cambridge,
During the Reagan administration, there was a strong push for
tuition vouchers that parents could use at either a public or
private school. Congressional concerns about diverting public money
to private schools stalled that idea.
GENERALLY regarded as a conservative preference, the move toward
public funding of private schools has recently gotten a leg up from
the other side of the political fence.
Polly Williams, a state representative in Wisconsin and a
Democrat, helped pass the first private-school voucher plan.
Starting this past September, several hundred low-income children in
Milwaukee began attending private schools at state expense.
Last summer, Brookings Institution, a liberal Washington think
tank, published a book that sparked widespread debate about school