Institute, private research firms, and, yes, also at a couple of think tanks that support school choice. If you dismiss the research showing that school choice works on grounds that it was all conducted by researchers who think school choice works, you might just as well dismiss the research showing that smoking causes cancer on grounds that it was all done by researchers who think smoking causes cancer. Part of the beauty of the scientific method is that when a study follows sound methods, the identity of the researcher becomes irrelevant.
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We [in Oklahoma public schools] welcome ALL children unconditionally! -Rob Miller, Oklahoma educator, A View from the Edge blog
Especially for poor children, more often the school is the one making the choice, not the parents. -Brett Dickerson, Oklahoma educator, Life at the Intersections blog
It is a lie that public schools accept all children. Over 100,000 students are expelled from public schools each year. Many more are removed from regular classrooms and shunted off into “alternative” programs, where the system doesn’t care whether they get an education. It is also a lie that private schools in choice programs are highly selective and make it difficult for at-risk students to get accepted. Participating parents – of all races, income levels and even disability statuses – consistently report that they had little difficulty finding a school that served them. This shouldn’t be surprising. Most of these private schools are indigenous to the community and exist precisely to serve these student populations. The typical choice school is an inner-city Catholic school that has always wanted to serve more, not fewer, at-risk students. The choice program allows it to do so.
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PERSPECTIVE • May 2015
Yes, some choice programs do permit private schools to deny admission to particular students they don’t think they can serve well. This is a good thing. The whole point of school choice is that all students are unique and have their own needs. The idea that every school should try be the right school for every student is the whole problem with the government school monopoly in the first place. When the parents themselves start reporting that they’re having difficulty finding a school to serve them, that is something I’ll take very seriously. What I will never take seriously is the fictional complaints invented by the public school unions and put in the mouths of parents to protect their unjust monopoly.
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[Education Savings Accounts] reduce the already limited amount of resources available to public schools and threaten to exacerbate the current teacher shortage! -Press release, Oklahoma State School Boards Association
The problem is, if you take money away from the public school, even if you take one child out, you still have to pay the teacher, the electric bills, buses. You’ve still got all the expenses, but now you have less money. -Linda Hampton, president of the Oklahoma Education Association School choice does not reduce the per-student funding available to public schools. When students leave public schools using choice, the schools lose a share of that student’s funding, but not all of it. What they do lose all of is the costs associated with educating that student. Yes, schools still have lights they have to keep on. You know what else they still have? All of the funding that isn’t