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Phyllis
Errico, Editor
Many people believe that the concept of school choice began
as an outgrowth of integration in public schools. When the
courts ordered an end to racial segregation in the public
school systems in this country, many areas experienced the
phenomenon of white flight, meaning that some citizens chose
to move out to the suburbs that were more racially homogenous,
or to send their children to out of district, private or religiously
affiliated schools. In order to re-integrate the public school
systems, many divisions instituted magnet schools as a method
to provide a focus on the educational program itself rather
than the racial composition of the students enrolled. Charter
Schools, Voucher programs, Tuition Tax Credits, Open Enrollment
and Specialty Centers are all forms of school choice that
have evolved as a part of the movement to create more variety
in education.
The push for alternatives to the traditional public school
also comes from perceived dissatisfaction with the job being
done by the current public schools as well as a movement by
some parents to have more control and involvement with their
children’s education. Thus, although it is most often
discussed and written about in an educational context, the
issue is one which is intimately connected to the societal
issue of parental involvement and control. The issue of choice
in education has given rise to several different types of
educational reform and programming options within the public
school arena as well as other choices, some of which are listed
above.
The first Charter school legislation was enacted in 1991
and the first such school began in 1992. In the year 2000
it is estimated by the U.S. Department of Education that over
1700 charter schools are in operation in 36 states and Puerto
Rico and the District of Columbia. Charter Schools are usually
public schools that are formed to offer choices within the
context of public education. Generally, charter schools are
formed by an application process to either the state or local
educational governing body. The intent is to increase access
to high quality education, encourage innovative teaching and
programming practices and increase parent/community involvement
in education. Charter schools are typically released from
many of the traditional regulations applicable to public education
institutions, and many have smaller class size and overall
smaller school populations. Charter school enabling legislation
covers areas such as policy and legal requirements, granting
of charters, governance of charter schools, fiscal support,
admissions policies, staffing, instructional issues and accountability
among other things.
Voucher programs currently exist in a few states in this
country and they essentially provide a voucher of a certain
amount of money to parents of school children to be applied
to tuition for the education of the children within a school
division. Generally these vouchers may be applied to any public
or private school and depending on the amount of the voucher,
it may cover the entire cost or only a portion of the school
tuition. Some voucher programs are limited to nonsectarian
institutions while others may be used at any educational institution.
Generally these programs provide parents of school age children
some type of tax advantage or benefit for the cost of sending
their children to school. This type of credit is usually only
applied to the cost of sending each child to school other
than the public school system and they may or may not applied
to sectarian educational institutions depending on the particular
state’s legislation. Like voucher programs, the amount
of the tuition tax credit may provide for only a portion of
the actual cost of the child’s school tuition.
An open enrollment program is generally a program within
a public school division, which allows any citizen within
the division to enroll their child in any of the division’s
schools regardless of the location of their residence. Generally,
the public school system will be required to provide a method
of transportation to these students to make this a meaningful
and fair option for its citizens.
Some compare specialty centers to magnet school programs.
A specialty center is usually either a stand alone public
school program or a center within a comprehensive, traditional
school that offers a specific focused area of study. Examples
of this would be a school of engineering, a school of the
arts, a foreign language immersion program or other similar
programs with an area of instructional focus. This type of
program is more self-selecting than a pure open enrollment
program because there is often an application and selection
process and acceptance is based on some type of stated criteria
and interest.
coThe school choice issue has generated perhaps more debate
than any other educational issue in the last ten years and
its opponents and proponents take every opportunity to advocate
their views. The proponents of school choice argue that the
one-size-fits-all model of public education is inadequate
and has proven to be unsuccessful given the lack of academic
success and abundance of disciplinary problems in many public
schools today. Choice proponents argue that by instituting
choice programs instruction can be tailored to the child’s
interests and individual needs. They argue that programs could
be designed with a great amount of parental input so that
parents would be true partners and supporters of the school
in order to bridge the school/home gap that so blatantly exists
in public education today. These proponents of school choice
also argue that providing options would improve public education
because it would force the existing public school programs
to improve so that they can compete with the choice programs.
Many of these advocates argue that the monopoly to finance
only traditional public education erodes both the quality
and creativity that would otherwise exist outside of this
bureaucracy.
The opponents of choice make the strong argument that the
way to maintain and to improve public schools is to focus
the resources, both human and financial, on the existing public
school systems. These opponents feel strongly that any diversion
of these resources would greatly erode the public schools.
They also point out the concern that choice programs are not
equally accessible to all segments of the population. This
is particularly true when the choice program provides only
a fraction of the cost of the education outside the public
school arena. In addition, while public schools clearly must
educate all children regardless of their racial, socioeconomic,
religious, disability or behavioral attributes, private schools
can establish criteria to exclude children with certain attributes.
Transportation and accessibility are also serious concerns
of the opponents of school choice. It is a reality of today’s
society that because of financial, employment and other family
constraints, many children would be unable to attend a school
other than their neighborhood school and their parents would
likewise be unable to participate in their child’s education
in any meaningful way. This issue also impacts the sense of
community and ownership many public educators strive to create
in their schools as they attempt to continue to integrate
and partner with the communities immediately surrounding their
schools. They argue that those who are able to transport their
children to the choice schools are already the parents who
have the resources available to access private programs thus
further alienating those families with less resources. Opponents
also stress that one of the underlying qualities of public
education is that it both teaches and exemplifies the virtue
of democracy and equality while choice schools may promote
narrow exclusionary agendas.
In order to capture the trends in the area of school choice
it is important to recognize that there are significant differences
between vouchers, tuition tax credit, charter schools, and
open enrollment and specialty programs within a traditional
public school setting.
Clearly the issues of vouchers and tuition tax credits that
enable parents to choose the school for their children and
get financial assistance from the government are the categories
which have gotten the most attention in the courts. This issue
is most often discussed in the context of providing government
funding to religious or sectarian schools since many of the
private schools today have a religious affiliation. Opponents
of the voucher system argue that providing public funds for
sectarian education is a clear violation of the Establishment
Clause of the First Amendment, because it violates the separation
between church and state by providing financial support to
religious institutions. Litigation in Ohio and Florida regarding
voucher programs has held these programs to violate the Establishment
Clause. Historically the Supreme Court has held that direct
governmental aid to religious institutions is a violation
of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. However,
proponents argue that the Supreme Court rulings that have
allowed indirect support for sectarian institutions would
support voucher or tuition tax credits because the public
funds and thus the benefits accrue to the parent and to the
child rather than to the religious institution thus causing
no establishment clause concern. This argument has been more
successful when made in the context of the tuition tax credit
programs where the benefit clearly goes to the parent than
in the voucher cases where depending on how the voucher system
works, state moneys may be sent directly to secretion schools
for tuition payments.
In any case, advocates of either type of program have been
encouraged by the recent Supreme Court case of Mitchell v.
Helms. The Court in this case ruled that the distribution
and use of federal chapter 2 funds to both sectarian and nonsectarian
schools does not violate the Establishment Clause.
Charter school legislation has been adopted in a majority
of states today and it is seen by many as a neutral means
of achieving school choice at least by those who wish to avoid
the First Amendment arguments. There have been several legal
challenges in state courts over the legality of charter schools.
These cases have been filed by the local school division and
the courts have overwhelmingly decided in favor of the legality
of charter schools. An example of this type of litigation
can found most recently in the New Jersey State courts. Although
there are some privately operated charter schools there is
a trend toward public charter schools in the hopes that choice
can be provided without diverting funds from the public schools.
Charter school legislation generally allows the local public
school board to review and accept charter school applications
so that they become an additional option in an array of public
schools options.
Charter school legislation is often characterized as either
strong or week. Strong charter school legislation frees the
charter school from many requirements such as teacher licensing
and prescribed curriculum and textbooks, often has multiple
charter-granting agencies such as the state, the local school
board and some additional agency and usually provide a specific
source or formula for funding. Weaker charter school legislation
generally provide charter granting authority to local school
boards only, has no appeal process for rejection of applications,
have a limit on the number of charter schools that can be
formed and provide no specific funding source. The stronger
charter school laws are often refered to as those with more
autonomy.
The concept of open enrollment and specialty schools or programs
within the traditional public school systems has been the
subject of little litigation yet these options seem to satisfy
many of the objectives of choice programs without the negative
of potential litigation. As in the past with many of the magnet
programs, a specialty center allows a student the choice of
attending an out of zone school based on their application
and acceptance into a specific program with a specific focus
of study. These specialty centers allow choice and a depth
of study based on the focus area that is very different from
the traditional school experience. Transportation for these
programs allows students from all over the school division
to access the school of their choice in the area of study
of their choice.
Several states have voucher or tax credit programs in place
which allow parents to choose a school for their child and
also to receive some public funding for this choice. Some
state courts such as Wisconsin, and Arizona have held these
programs to be neutral and not an endorsement of religion.
Courts in other states such as Ohio and Florida have struck
down these programs ruling that they provide support for sectarian
education in violation of the Establishment Clause.
As mentioned earlier voucher programs as well as tax credit
programs are subject to frequent challenges on constitutional
grounds and whether or not a state voucher program will pass
legal muster will depend on the structure of the particular
program, the state’s constitution and statutes, and future
decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, whose decisions regarding
religion and public schools have been confusing at best.
A Federal Public Charter School program supports the establishment
of charter schools by providing funding to charter schools
that have the following characteristics:
- Formed under state legislation,
- Is a public school,
- Is non-sectarian,
- Does not charge tuition,
- Meets relevant civil rights, health and safety requirement,
and
- Has a lottery system and a waiting list.
Charter schools have been in effect for almost ten years
with Minnesota being the first to adopt charter school legislation
in 1991. Arizona’s charter school legislation is considered
to be the strongest followed by California, Colorado, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina. Fifty percent of
the current charter schools are in the states of Arizona,
California and Michigan. Although Minnesota was the first
state to adopt charter school legislation, it has fewer charter
schools because the original enabling legislation had a cap
on the number of charter school that could be approved. Many
of these states report factors such as smaller school size
(many under 200 students), lower number of school transitions,
alternative grade configurations, slightly smaller class sizes,
varied nature of instructional vision, and computers in the
classroom as successful characteristics of their charter school
programs. The U.S. Department of Education also reported that
the increased level of autonomy in a charter school enables
educators, parents and the communities to make independent
decisions and set policy about educational management.
Virginia has had Charter School enabling legislation since
1998. This legislation grants local school boards the sole
authority to grant charters. In addition it allows a local
school board to determine whether or not it will take applications.
A recent amendment effective July 1, 2000 requires local school
boards to provide public notice of their intent to accept
or not to accept charter school applications by December 31,
2000. If a local school board acts in favor of accepting applications
they must establish certain procedures for receiving, reviewing
and granting or denying specific applications. The Virginia
legislation provides no appeal to the denial of a charter
school application or the revocation or failure to renew an
agreement. The period of approval is for no longer than three
years and these schools may operate free from local school
division policies and state regulations. In Virginia, charter
Schools are subject to the Standards of Quality, the Standards
of Learning and Standards of Accreditation.
There are a number of issues that arise out of the increased
interest and instances of school choice. Clearly funding is
an issue both from a legal standpoint and a practical one
as well. In the case of charter schools, without allocated
financial resources which must include both capital and operating
expenses a charter school will have difficulty thriving. In
addition, if teachers in the charter school are exempt from
certain regulations such as licensure or background checks
the issues of who is responsible for the success or failure
of the schools and the safety and security of the educational
environment are an important one. The issue of re-segregation
and the serving of children with disabilities in these charter
schools are also ones which must be examined.
These charter schools are relatively new and it appears that
some historical data will be necessary to truly assess their
success or failure. Clearly there are as many questions as
answers in this educational reform called choice. The First
Amendment issues inherent in the Voucher and to lesser extent
the Tuition Tax Credit programs pose a challenge to the success
of these programs.
There is clearly a perception that public education does
not meet the goals and expectations of a number of the citizens
of this country and it is equally clear that choice as a means
of education reform is here to stay. A historical look at
public education shows a dynamic and changing public school
system in this country that has clearly recognized that a
one-size public education system does not fit all students.
This concept is illustrated through examination of the vocational
and technical programs in the public school system in the
past, as well as the ever-increasing options available to
students with educational disabilities over the last 25 years.
Teachers are being trained that children learn in a variety
of ways and public school administrators have realized that
a continuum of various educational options provide the most
success in public schools. Therefore rather than concluding
that the public schools cannot provide the choice and variety
to suit all children one could look at the successes and visionary
programs that exist within the public schools in the form
of specialty programs and creative scheduling. These innovations
incorporate both practical and academic focus to the public
school child’s experience. It is difficult to argue that
every student cannot benefit from choice in educational options
but in order to be meaningful they must be available to all
children. More data on the existing and yet to be formed charter
schools must be examined carefully before we abandon what
currently exists for an entirely new structure.
Click here for summary of recent Virginia Legislative history
of “Choice:
Charter Schools.”
“Fast Facts About Charter Schools.” Phi Delta Kappan,
“A Word on Charter School Legislation, Charter School
Litigation, Charter School
Contracts, Charter School Research.” Alexandria , VA:
National School Board Assn., Fall1999/Winter 2000.
Gittins, Naomi, ed. A Word On, Charter School Legislation,
Charter School Litigation, Charter School Contracts, Charter
School Research, Alexandria,VA:National School Boards Assn
Fall 1999/Winter 2000
Phi Delta Kappa International, Fast Facts About charter Schools,
February 2000, Bloomington, Indiana.
Riddle, Wayne and James Stedman. “97-519: Public Charter
Schools: State Developments and Federal Policy Options.”
4 November 1998 CRS: Long Report for Congress 17 November
2000.
“School Choice.” Online. The
Center for Education Reform. 30 June 2000. The Center
for Education Reform. 28 August 2000.
United States. Department of Education. Office of Educational
Research and Improvement. “The State of Charter Schools
2000.” Washington: U.S. Dept. of Education, 2000.
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