If you were designing a K-12 education
system from scratch, with no preconceived notions, and taking full account of
the breathtaking technological innovations that have made possible a
high-quality, highly personalized education for every child, what would that
system look like?
Chances are that it would look little
like the hidebound, bureaucratic, expensive, top-down, one-size-fits-all,
command-and-control, inefficient, reform-resistant, administratively bloated,
special-interest manipulated, obsolete, impersonal bricks-and-mortar system
that represents the most disastrous failure of central planning west of
Communist China and south of the United States Postal Service.
And yet, that is the system to which the
vast majority of American schoolchildren are consigned. Little wonder that
American high schoolers rank 21st out of 30 economically advanced nations in
science literacy and 25th in math. Our nation cannot continue to thrive so long
as our schools are pumping out mediocre graduates who cannot compete
effectively in the world economy.
The proliferation of school choice—through open public school
enrollment, magnet schools, charter schools, school vouchers, and scholarship
tax credits—has expanded educational opportunities and competition within
American K-12 education. Charter schools, in particular, often provide
world-class educational programs to a growing number of children, and they
sometimes offer individualized, technology-based programs.
But most existing school choice programs provide variations of the same
nineteenth-century model that continues to dominate K-12 education:
classroom-based instruction in a bricks-and-mortar setting. The school choice
programs operate within a system in which the vast majority of funding is
directed toward school districts, based on student counts. Charter and voucher
programs make that funding transportable to particular types of alternative
schools, but do not give families full control of funding to maximize
opportunities for their children.
In Arizona, a new program provides for greater parental choice and more
educational options than ever before: education savings accounts (ESAs). These
accounts mark an important public policy breakthrough with enormous potential
to create a truly twenty-first century system of K-12 education.
The Rise of ESAs
The Goldwater Institute first developed the idea of education savings
accounts in 2005. The idea is simple. For any eligible K-12 student who agrees
to leave the public schools, the state will transfer roughly 90 percent of the
per-pupil amount (leaving the local school district contribution behind) into
an education savings account owned by the student’s family. The savings account
can be used for any approved education expense, from
private school tuition to distance learning, curriculum, software, tutoring,
community college tuition, contributions to a 529 college savings plan, or
discrete services offered by public schools. Any money remaining after high
school graduation can be used for college.
For students using the savings accounts, the role of the state is
fundamentally transformed from a provider of education into a funder or enabler
of education. Education, in turn, is transformed from a package of services
into a menu of choices. A student, for instance, can combine distance learning
with a public school chemistry lab, a community college history course, and a
personal math tutor. The possibilities are as diverse as the needs, skills, and
interests of the students who will take advantage of them. At the same time,
education savings accounts take the bureaucracy and pervasive special-interest
influence out of education, lowering its cost and allowing market forces and
technology to deliver highly personalized services to students.
Education savings accounts remained on the drawing board for several years,
as Arizona steadily expanded its other school choice options. In 2006, the
state legislature enacted the state’s first school voucher program, allowing
disabled and foster children to use state funds for private school tuition. As
happens almost every time a significant expansion of private educational
options is adopted, a lawsuit was filed challenging the voucher program on
behalf of groups who benefit from the educational status quo.
School choice opponents lost one of their primary legal weapons a decade
ago when the U.S. Supreme Court, inZelman v. Simmons-Harris, upheld the
Cleveland school voucher program against a lawsuit contending that it violated
the First Amendment’s prohibition of establishment of religion. Since then,
opponents have focused on state constitutional provisions to try to thwart
school choice.
Their principal tool is the so-called Blaine amendments, which can be
found in one form or another in two-thirds of state constitutions. The Blaine
amendments, which were adopted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries to thwart public support for Catholic schools, forbid the use of
public funds for the benefit of “sectarian” schools.
Some state courts have ruled that vouchers are permissible under such
provisions, because vouchers benefit students rather than schools. The Arizona
Supreme Court, however, in its 2009 decision in Cain v. Horne, ruled that the voucher
program violated the state constitution because the only purpose to which
vouchers could be applied was private school tuition. The Court left open the
possibility that a program that provided broader choices might pass
constitutional muster.
Enter education savings accounts.
An Urgent Need For Real School Choice
When students with disabilities were displaced from their school choice
program following the Cain decision, the Arizona legislature
responded quickly by enacting an education savings account program for them.
The program promptly was challenged in court by the state teachers’ union and
the Arizona School Boards Association, contending that the new program violates
the Blaine Amendment. The Goldwater Institute joined the state in defending the
program. In the opening round, Superior Court Judge Maria Del Mar Verdin upheld
the program, holding that the wide range of services for which the accounts can
be used means that the program does not constitute aid to private schools. The
case is currently pending in the Arizona Court of Appeals.
Meanwhile, Governor Jan Brewer this year signed into law a major
expansion of education savings accounts. The expansion builds upon a tough new
accountability system that gives letter grades to every public school based on
annual student progress. As of the 2012-13 school year, approximately 100,000
students in public schools that received “D” or “F” grades now are eligible for
education savings accounts.
Arizona’s program is drawing attention from education reformers
nationwide, especially in other states, such as Florida, which have Blaine
amendments in their constitutions. The need is urgent, especially for children
who are poorly served by the current system. Roughly half of all black and
Hispanic students drop out of school before graduation. Failure to graduate
dramatically decreases employment opportunities and increases prospects for
crime and welfare dependency. Education savings accounts provide learning
alternatives that can keep at-risk students motivated and off the streets.
Education savings accounts are a catalyst for systemic change. Indeed,
if the school choice movement has erred over the past decade, it is not because
it has been too bold and radical but because it has not nearly been bold and
radical enough. If we are to compete effectively in the dynamic global economy,
we need, more than anything else, modern, high-quality education, freed from
the shackles of the status quo. Education savings accounts are the way to get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment