school choice

It's a great thing to go to a school function and see many of your neighbors there and feel like part of a community. It's a wonderful thing to see your child walking to school with neighbors. Neighborhood schools support communities, and strong communities support neighborhood schools.

School choice, on the other hand, fractures communities. A friend who choiced her kids out of the neighborhood says, "It's like moving out to the country." Probably worse--out in the country, I expect the school is still a center of the community and people know each other.

But even worse than the weakening of communities is the effect of school choice on neighborhood schools. Strong schools may not notice the effect of competition--in fact, they tend to benefit. Weak schools, on the other hand, get weaker. Our previous neighborhood school was such a school. About 80% of kids receive free or reduced-price lunch, and about 50% of students are Hispanic, many of whom are learning English as a second language. About half the school population lives near the school; the other half are bused in from a poorer area of town. The school faculty are very good. The principal is a strong leader who knows everyone and responds quickly to concerns. My children always had good--sometimes excellent-- teachers. But when there's a mandate that no child be left behind and half the students are behind, the students that are ahead might not get much attention.

Soon after the school was built 9 years ago, charter schools started popping up. Families of high-achieving students, weary of all that our Title I school had to offer, soon gravitated toward halls filled with happy children, conservative values, and statues of Ronald Reagan. I don't know the numbers of students who fled, but PTA lost many involved parents. We still had a core of hard-working, good-hearted moms who keep the PTA going. But it's hard to be one of the few, year after year. I didn't last long. I was contemplating driving our oldest to a gifted & talented program in a neighboring town when our district finally, amazingly decided to start a program. And because our district leaders believe in equal access, they even provide busing.

And then we moved, choosing our location in part due to its proximity to "good" schools. We're just north of the junior high that our oldest would attend if he hadn't chosen the new GT magnet at the high school. Our second attends the magnet for 4-6 graders. Our third child walks to the neighborhood school, where I do not plan to send our fourth. Before we got here I contacted the principal to ask what enrichment and acceleration they offered in math, as our second grader had done second grade math as a first grader (thanks to the responsive principal and accommodating teachers at the Title I school); our new principal responded, "None." My husband wants me to get involved instead of opting out, and part of me thinks I should, but most people seem happy with the school. I just arrived, and change takes time. I'm impatient and tired.

I curse George W (for many things) and his colleagues, who turned public schools into test-prep centers and then cried for options like charter schools that are much less fettered by regulations. I laud the parents who strengthen their neighborhood schools, empathize with parents who don't, and am grateful for district leaders who provide options.

We're happy with the schools we've chosen, but there are trade-offs. With our older children, we've given up something of convenience and community; With our third, we've chosen community over intellectual challenge. With choice, trade-offs are a given, I think.