January
2008
Killing School Choice
Some things just won’t happen and killing school choice is one of them (light rail is another). That won’t stop the right from sending out an army of chicken littles to find a way to energize their base and divide those on both the center and the left.
Just because school choice is safe though doesn’t mean that it should not be held accountable. The proposal to have school choice students pass the same tests as MPS students is a good one but forcing them to admit special needs students would kill school choice and that portion will never happen.
Here’s why.
Special needs students require special services which drive up the cost of education. Even in a large system like MPS, the dramatically high cost of special education students is a drain and very taxing on the system. There is no question that the requirement for MPS to take special ed students while choice schools get a free ride is unfair. Despite the unfair nature of the requirement, if choice schools were required to take special ed students, they would collapse and many would have to close their doors.
The problem, in this instance, is not so much school choice as much as it is a funding formula that puts MPS at a financial disadvantage. The State of Wisconsin should recognize this problem and properly fund the needs of special ed students. If they did that, school choice would find itself as part of the permanent solution as political opposition would be marginalized.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
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I agree with most of what you say here. We may differ as to the merits of the Choice program as a whole–both of us exchanging examples of the good, bad, and ugly which come along with any program of its type. But I agree that Choice students should take the same tests as public school children (the fact that the WKCE is a poor test and a scam aside) The Choice people have to have known that regulation and accountability always should follow money.
But Special Ed is another problem. The govt. is great in this respect: they promise full funding for Special Ed after mandating everything for students with special needs. In the end they deliver far less than they promise, laving local districts to pick up the difference at the expense of other students. This has been the case under both republican and democratic administrations. I believe the problems in this area–regardless of what happens with choice–will never be solved until the state steps up and fully funds Special Ed from a bubget separate from the traditional education budget. This would encourage a real disclosure of Special Ed. expenditures and, I hope, an honest debate about the merits of these programs. However, I don’t imagine any politician has the guts to call this problem what it is–a disaster.
It is just ne more example of how in education 80% of money and effort goes into 20% of students.