Why Do We Leave Our Kids in Failing Schools?
Last year, I had the pleasure of participating with a dynamic group of concerned parents, teachers, attorneys, civic leaders and academics to draft a ballot initiative that would have allowed any parent who was not satisfied with their child’s neighborhood school to create an education savings account for that child to use in a private school of their choice. We were working off of the premise that competition among all kinds of schools will not only improve those schools, but also allow parents to find the right kinds of schools for their children.
In fact, a 2021 poll around the proposal showed:
Only 31% of voters think California public schools are doing an excellent or good job right now, compared with 42% prior to the pandemic.
69% of voters agree that, “Despite spending over $20,000 per student, California’s public schools are not performing well. We need to give parents better options to educate their children—especially when their school is failing.”
61% of voters think minority students are being failed by public schools and that Education Savings Accounts would help them.
61% of California voters think schools should be fully open now.
59% of voters believe Education Savings Accounts would allow poorer families to help their kids, and that the pandemic showed there are alternatives to educating children outside traditional public schools.
Indeed, while traditional district or neighborhood schools educate a vast majority of California’s 6.6 million K-12 age students, public charter, private and homeschool enrollments have dramatically increased in the last few years, especially during the pandemic. California’s K-12 enrollment has been in decline since 2019 with families putting their kids in private or homeschool situations or leaving the state entirely. In fact, as noted by the Public Policy Institute of California, recent data from the California Department of Education shows that 310,000 children have left our public schools in just the last 3 years.
This is not an indictment on all our traditional neighborhood public schools. Many of them are amazing places of education. And those schools that are held accountable by parents do all they can to perpetuate the highest academic standards and keep neighborhood students attending their campuses. Yet, there are serious institutional barriers in state law that keep our children in schools that may not fully meet their needs despite the best intentions and interventions by school administrators and teachers.
Financial barriers have many parents feeling that they have no options but to send their children to neighborhood schools. Private schools, charter schools, and home schools are achieving better educational results at a much lower cost. Despite being less expensive, there are still costs associated with alternative education options that, on the margins for many low and middle class, make many of these options unaffordable or unavailable for most students. Zip codes and lotteries determine the educational options available for most low and middle-income students. Further, children with serious developmental, behavioral and physical disabilities may not be immediately recognized on the surface, but require diagnostic tests that are beyond the general expertise of a local school.
Prior to COVID-19, around 10 percent of students in California were utilizing alternative education options, but the pandemic required families to try alternatives. Today a majority of families are interested in alternative learning options for their students beyond the traditional public school system.
We should all be concerned that there are too many neighborhood schools that operate without a sufficient amount of accountability. Other schools are isolated in rural communities. Or some schools, especially in our inner-cities, are not safe or secure. Kids from those communities are held captive in a failing system despite $22,893 of federal and state dollars spent per student this year.
That is a lot of money. It would be enough to provide an exclusive private school experience. And that was the point in writing a measure that would allow the money set aside in the state’s general fund every year, around $17,000 (and growing) to follow that child and fund tuition and other K-12 eligible education expenses.
We allow government money to follow our college students, why shouldn’t we do the same for our K-12 age children? When there are no viable or available options, parents feel trapped in failing public schools.
While there are many ways to educate our children—public neighborhood schools, public charter schools, private schools or homeschool—I believe parents are ultimately responsible for the education of their children. A vast majority of them simply want options. They should have access to the tools and resources necessary to provide the best education opportunities for their kids.
In one word, parents need choice.
