What’s Wrong With
School Choice?
By BradCornelio
On January 30th, 2017,
the Lima News reported that Senator Matt Huffman is fighting for school choice
for parents and students in the State of Ohio.
Naturally this lead to a heated debated with school teachers opposing
school choice, parents, and others supporting school choice. This lead the bradcornelio show to say that
public schools are failing, and our
children and parents need to have a choice in which benefits their
children. The following article will
discuss some reasons why I think public schools are failing.
1. Schools
are like the only super store in the area.
What do I mean by this? Well imagine,
if you will, that you live in an area where there is a super store, i.e. Wal-Mart
type. Regulations state that this is the only store that you can shop in. You cannot shop online, or shop in another
part of town, you are stuck shopping at this one store. What can this store do? Well no doubt this
store will over-charge you for goods and services that are mediocre at
best. The customer service that you receive
at this store would be lacking due to the fact that store would hire anyone who
wanted a job without care, because you have to shop there. In other words, there’s
no competition for this store to have to compete.
Compare this description to our
public school system. If you live in a
certain district, your children have to go to said school in that district
(exceptions include open enrollment, but for the sake of this article open
enrolment does not exist). So since your children have to go to that school in
that district, then what reason would teachers want school choice? School choice opens up competition to the
public school system which teachers do not want to have.
Let’s examine further this concept
of educational competition. Imagine if
public school teachers’ bonuses were merit based, such as a sales person. Would
the quality of education in America improve?
Just think if a teacher’s salary was based on the average gpa of their
students. Right now, public school
teachers do not have to worry about merit based pay, because they already have
a steady supply of customers, that’s you the tax payers and parents.
Competition brings with it higher
standards of education because now as a public school, you have to show the
public and parents, that this is the best school. The school will have to show that their
testing scores are top notch that they have a 99% graduation rate, and that
average gpa is high. They now have to
compete with surrounding schools so that they remain relevant in the community,
without competition, schools will remain mediocre at best.
2. The class
room education model needs a review
Today as I watch my children attend
school I have noticed a surprising trend.
In the 18 years since I’ve been out of school, the way students are
taught, is the same as it was when I attended.
True the technology has been approved, but has the teaching methods
changed. Students arrive at school, sit
at their desks, the teacher lectures, there are some in-class activities,
discussions, and videos, then the students head home.
I do not necessarily blame this
model solely on teachers, a lot of the blame has to go toward governmental
regulations and they way testing’s are done in the USA. Teachers have no choice really but to teach
in order to pass some state or federal standard designed by government
officials. Schools would be much more
effective if 1 class room sizes were smaller and 2 if students were divided in
classrooms in which they learn the best.
In other words, some students are visual learners, some students are
hands on students, and still other students are book learners. Why not have classrooms devoted to each style
of learner? Not only will the students thrive but I believe they will be more
active in their school pursuits.
School choice brings out the best in
children, right now public school settings have no reason to change the
classroom setting. All students have been subjected to the same educational
setting since students began in a one room school house. Public school teachers should be taking the
lead in changing this, however again, they have a monopoly and a steady supply
of customers, why would they change.
3. Educated
Teachers Lack Basic Common Sense
A third reason our public schools
are failing students is that they lack complete common sense. Throughout the United States we have seen
young children kicked out of school for using their fingers as a gun, or
converting a pop tart into a gun, or how many young children have been
handcuffed, asked to remove shirts that are not offensive except to maybe 1. Where
are the teachers and staff using common sense to these zero tolerance policies? I can understand protecting our students,
however, there needs to be balance.
4. Social Media itself Proves Public
Schools have failed
How many times have you read a
comment or a post on FaceBook and the grammar is poorly written? How many times have you read “your” when it
should have “you’re”? How about the misuse of “there,” “they’re”, and “their”? These are young folks who have recently
graduated school and yet fail to use proper grammar in their comments or
expressions. I fully blame the public educational
system which allowed students to communicate in what I deem social media speech
in their projects. If a student cannot
properly use nouns, pronouns, possessive pronouns, then who is to blame but no
other then the school system. Teachers
have failed to instill this basic education in our children.
Based on my opinions the public
educational system of the USA has failed.
We spend more in education and our results are poor. School choice and competition is needed in
order for the next generation to compete with the future technological jobs,
the continued construction careers, and other future careers in medicine and
elsewhere.
I’ve only been able to touch on a few reasons why I think
public education has failed and is continuing to fail. There are many other factors that show the
reason why public schools have failed, so stay tuned for part 2 of my series
of school choice. Granted these are only
my opinions so please feel free to comment freely and tell me where I am
wrong. I am open to free and open
debate.
