School Choice
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CER Letter to the Editor
ANSWER
TO VOUCHERS?
By Jeanne Allen
An edited version of the below was printed in the New York Times, October 24, 2000
Dear Editor:
"A Ticket to Suburbia" (Richard Rothstein 10/18/00) suggests that the answer to helping poor kids succeed is not directly in enabling their education where they live, but getting them into middle-class suburbs which more likely have better schools.
He's wrong on both accounts. First, education has always been the great equalizer. Good schools create communities that thrive, and well-educated people demand better services. Low-income parents are no less interested in seeing communities improve than middle income parents. The reason their communities lack middle-class trappings is because poor people are trapped in schools with low expectations and no available alternatives. Rather than see community development as a static model that requires one to leave, Rothstein needs to recognize that there are thriving communities where there once was poverty in many urban areas precisely because of school improvements.
Those improvements are not likely to be made unless there is an opportunity for new people with new ideas to come in and help change the way things are done. School choice not only gives poor parents the ability to buy-up, but it gives school professionals more respect and choice and communities embrace the choices that succeed.
Finally, who said public schools in middle class neighborhoods were something to crow about? Of the nation's decline in education, while gaps between suburbia and cities are still wide, some of our largest declines have been in suburban schools where standards are not clear, curriculum is neglected and parents are taken for granted. School reform needs to happen in all corners, and rather than discourage choices that make that happen, they should be embraced. Rothstein once again proves the point that more often than not, those who have choice are the ones who oppose it.
Sincerely,
Jeanne Allen
President, The Center for Education Reform
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The Center for Education Reform [CER] is a national, independent, non-profit advocacy organization providing support and guidance to individuals, community and civic groups, policymakers and others who are working to bring fundamental reforms to their schools. For additional information on education reform please call CER at (202) 822-9000.