Can School Choice Put Failing Public Schools Out of Business?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder examines the school choice argument that allowing parents to redirect tax dollars will force underperforming schools to improve or close.
Key Takeaways
- The market theory sounds compelling - Proponents argue competition will force failing schools to improve or lose students
- Reality is more complicated - Failing schools often serve the most vulnerable students who can't easily switch schools
- Public schools can't just close - Unlike businesses, schools have obligations to every student in their community
Transcript
Can school choice put bad public schools out of business?
This is the argument I hear for school choice all the time, especially privatization schemes where public money is being used to pay for private schools.
There's this argument that if parents have a choice about where to send their kids and they can take their tax dollars with them, that it will put the bad public schools out of business.
And I have to ask you, has that ever happened?
Has there ever been a single case where a public school that was bad drove away all of its students by being bad, and they all went to a school of choice.
They took their tax dollars with them, and they all went to another school, the failing public school closed.
Has that actually happened?
And the answer, of course, is no, that doesn't happen.
And the reason it doesn't happen is because the school of choice, the private school, doesn't want all of those students.
They only want some of them.
We have to recognize that public schools do a very specific job of educating all students.
And whenever you talk about educating students but leave out some of them, you have to recognize that you're changing the job.
You're changing the scope of the task.
And private schools fundamentally have a different job than public schools.
They do not have the job of educating all students.
So I will believe that this is a viable plan when I see a private school take all of the students, including the students with special needs, including the students with disabilities, including the students with bad test scores, when they take all of those students and get better results with them, then I will believe this argument that school choice is the answer to quote-unquote failing schools.
Let me know what you think.