Issues / Raising the Bar on Education

Governor Mitt Romney has said that when parents and kids are free to choose their school everyone benefits.

I would like to hear your reasons to agree or disagree, until then, here are my Reasons to agree with Romney:

1. Choice is good.
2. School choice is good.
3. It is best to trust individuals to make decisions for their own lives. +3
4. Competition and market forces can drive innovation and improvement in education.
5. Parents should have the right to choose the best educational options for their children.
6. School choice can provide opportunities for disadvantaged students stuck in underperforming schools.
7. Increased choice can lead to more diverse and specialized educational offerings.
8. School choice can empower families and communities to have a greater stake in education.
9. Competition and choice in Educational opportunities – whether it comes from private schools, charter schools, or home schooling – makes traditional public schools better and improves the quality of Education for all of America's kids.
10. Public schools have no motivation, besides doing the right thing, to do a good job. Sure people want to do the right things, but people don't stick to diets, they cheat on the spouses, and watch too much TV, even when there is a direct reward or punishment that would seem to motivate them. A lot of teachers are great people, but they are no better than the rest of us, and the rest of us often need economic incentives to do what is right. Good schools will attract more kids, and will be able to charge more money, and pay better. Competition will help schools all schools do better.
11. Bethtopaz: "Just go into any DMV and you will see what government control does to quality and motivation to excel and offer the best customer service."
12. People make vague arguments about hidden costs. The example I was given is that middle income people would be able to afford the extra cost to take their kids to better schools. That is the problem with liberals: they think that, yes, this would make the world better for everyone, but it is not perfect on paper and so we should not do it, or not everyone would be able to take full advantage of it... it is academic to them, and they are able to just ignore the fact that it would help the majority of people directly, and create a better educational environment for everyone. But they don't care. You can find a problem with any plan. A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled, and democrats love committees.
13. Someone said that private schools were used in the south as a way to segregate. I don't know if this is true or not, but this is strange logic. By this logic, it is wrong to use any tool, that has once been used by bad people. By this logic, we should not go to any schools, because Nazis also sent their children to schools. The only valid question is if vouchers today would lead to segregation, and the whole purpose of vouchers is that they give poor children the opportunity to choose their schools, just like rich people. I think vouchers lead away from segregation.
14. Some say that vouchers would hurt the community, because the way kids go to school now, is based on their location. All the kids from the same neighborhood now go to the same schools. But this the typical liberal way of looking at the world: we know better how to raise your kids than you do. Liberals get an idea in their mind of what leads to ideal communities. They think that for some reason having everyone from a certain area going to the same school will help create a sense of community. Sure. There are times when a sense of community might help a child, or neighborhood, but going to a better school, might also help children. Feeling involved, and empowered might help parents. Their are a lot of complicated decisions, and republicans and libertarians want to empower the individuals.
15. Just because it is not practical for everyone, does not mean it is not practical for anyone. It is a simple matter of respecting parents rights, that if you are going to help them with education, and they live equally as close to a catholic school and a public school, the parents should be able to send their kids to whichever one they want.
16. If parents had a choice as to which schools their kids would go to, newspapers, magazines, and other publications that parents read would find ways to evaluate these different schools. If parents had a choice as to which school to send their kids, there would be more interest in education in general. Right now we spend more time thinking about what type of toilet paper to buy, then we think about were to send our kids to school, because we don't have a choice of were to send our kids to school.
17. Bookstores don't hurt libraries, and even if they do, it doesn't matter, unless you work for the library and don't want to work for a bookstore. The important thing is people have a choice of where to go, and that they are able to read books.
18. Its wrong to say; "don't use my tax money to fund private and home schooling". Why should you have the right to tell parents where to send their kids?
19. Catholic schools do better than public schools.

Reasons to disagree:

1. School choice can drain resources and talent from traditional public schools.
2. Voucher programs can divert public funds to private, often religious, schools.
3. School choice can exacerbate inequities by benefiting savvy, well-resourced families.
4. Increased segregation and stratification can result from self-sorting into different schools.
5. Public education is a public good that benefits society as a whole, not just individual consumers. 

Objective Criteria for Assessing the Validity of this Belief

1. Educational outcomes: Impacts on student achievement, graduation rates, college readiness
2. Equity and access: Effects on educational opportunities for disadvantaged students
3. Fiscal impacts: Changes in public school funding and overall education spending
4. Social cohesion: Consequences for community engagement and student diversity in schools

Unstated Assumptions

• Market competition in education will yield better outcomes than public provision
• Parents have the information and resources to make optimal school choices
• Individual choice should take priority over collective public education system
• School choice won't exacerbate existing inequities or segregation

Shared and Opposing Interests

Shared:

• Desire to improve educational quality and student success
• Commitment to providing excellent education for all children
• Belief that current system has room for improvement

Opposing:

• Advocates prioritize individual choice, market efficiency
• Critics prioritize equity, public education as a common good

Underlying Issues

• Structural inequities in access to high-quality schools and resources
• Differing philosophies on education as a private vs. public good
• Tensions between standardization and innovation, centralization and decentralization
• Conflicting evidence on the impacts of choice policies in practice

Key Resources

• "The Market Approach to Education" by John Chubb and Terry Moe
• "The Death and Life of the Great American School System" by Diane Ravitch
• "Learning from the Federal Market-Based Reforms" ed. by William Mathis & Tina Trujillo
• CREDO studies on charter school performance from Stanford University

Top-rated solutions

1. Controlled choice within public school districts to allow options without privatization
2. Weighted student funding formulas to direct resources based on student need
3. Unified enrollment systems to simplify choice process and ensure equitable access
4. Accountability measures that value diversity and prevent selective admission
5. Cooperative partnerships between district and choice schools to share best practices

Alternative ways of saying the same thing

• "Families should be empowered with options in their children's education"
• Equivalency: High
• Topic Equivalency: School Choice
• Strength: Moderate
• Specificity: Moderate
• "Public education is a public good that should not be subject to market forces"
• Equivalency: Low
• Topic Equivalency: School Choice
• Strength: High
• Specificity: High

Most Likely Costs and Benefits:

Costs:

• Physiological: Potential loss of funding for public schools that serve high-need students (High likelihood, Moderate impact)
• Safety: Reduced social cohesion and increased segregation in schools (Moderate likelihood, High impact)

Benefits:

• Esteem: Empowered families who feel more control over their children's education (High likelihood, Moderate impact)
• Self-actualization: Increased innovation and specialization in educational offerings (Moderate likelihood, Moderate impact)

Supporting Media:

• "Waiting for Superman" documentary (Supports school choice)
• "Backpack Full of Cash" documentary (Critiques school choice)
• Political cartoons illustrating the debate (Various perspectives)
• School choice policy reports from think tanks (Various perspectives)

Interests, Needs, and Goals:

Agree:

• Desire for greater educational options and opportunities
• Belief in market competition as a driver of quality
• Emphasis on individual choice and empowerment

Disagree:

• Commitment to strong public education system for all
• Concern for equity and serving the most disadvantaged
• Value of education as a public good and social equalizer

Values and Ethics:

Agree:

• Individual liberty and choice
• Efficiency and innovation
• Accountability through market mechanisms

Disagree:

• Equality of opportunity
• Social justice and equity
• Democratic control and public accountability

Best Supporting Evidence:

• CREDO studies on charter school performance (Mixed results)
• Brookings Institution reports on school choice outcomes (Various perspectives)
• National Bureau of Economic Research studies on voucher programs (Various results)

Most Credible Supporters:

Agree:

• Milton Friedman, economist and school choice advocate
• Betsy DeVos, former U.S. Secretary of Education
• Jeanne Allen, Center for Education Reform

Disagree:

• Diane Ravitch, education historian and public school advocate
• Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers president
• Michael Apple, education policy scholar

Learn more:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_choice

Movies that agree:

Movies that disagree:

Interest of those who agree

Interest of those who disagree

Books that agree

Books that agree

Web pages that agree

1.   http://www.dfer.org/

Web pages that disagree