The Maturation of Choice By Sean Rickert, Superintendent Pima USD, ARSA Executive Board The fourth week in January marked the eleventh anniversary of National School Choice Week, and for most educators in rural Arizona it was capped off with a heartfelt yawn. Not that school choice isn’t a significant factor in the lives of all of us, but after almost thirty years there isn’t much left to get excited about. This begs the question, “Why does the barely relevant question of school choice continue to dominate education policy discussions in Arizona?” No surprise, I have some thoughts on the subject. There were many experts thirty years ago worrying that American schools were not doing a very good job of educating the nation's future leaders. Set aside the debate over this assertion to focus on the steps taken since to address the “problem”. Two approaches to the The problem rose to the top, and have influenced education policy since. first relied on accountability metrics focused on standards and standardized test scores measuring the effectiveness of schools. Metric based accountability relying on test data seemed a natural way to find schools needing to improve since the concern about school performance grew out of data showing American students didn’t compare favorably on tests to students from other countries. By incentivizing improvement in student test scores, it was hoped we could spur greater performance. The second approach was based on economic principles. In a bold departure from everything people knew about schools it was posited that what was lacking from our education system was Page 13 the motivation provided by alternatives. Keep in mind this was born in the Cold War era when the strength of market-basedcapitalist economies was sacrosanct and a system where central planning determined consumer outcomes was the enemy. A growing number of policy reform leaders adopted the perspective that the best way to fix what was ailing our schools was to inject choice into the system and reward the hardest working, best performing schools. The rest would atrophy and die. Since the Nation at Risk report was published in the late 80’s, we have seen these two approaches - metric base accountability and market-based accountability at work reforming our education system. Often they are at odds with each other and both continue to affect the work we do in schools every day. These efforts quickly bore fruit in Arizona where the obstacles of teachers' unions were absent. In 1994 the legislature approved sweeping legislation that allowed private businesses to enter the education industry as charter school operators. allowed to enroll their child in any public school regardless of their district of residency. This opened the door for parents to have a number of options where their children’s education was concerned. Add to this an Empowerment Scholarship Account system allowing parents to take state funding to fund private education alternatives and you have one of the most robust implementations of the second path to school improvement in the world. (continued on page 16) “Stronger Together!” In addition, parents were
14 Publizr Home