School Systems should allow parents to choose which local school their child will attend

School Systems should allow parents to choose which local school their child will attend

Abstract

School choice is a policy or program which provides students and families with an alternative to attend schools other than those public schools within their district. They may have options such as charter schools, private schools, home schools, digital learning, or public schools in different regions. School choice empowers parents with the ability to choose the school their children will attend. School choice, therefore, offers parental authority. Parents play a vital role in their children’s education, and families should be given a right to choose a school and be involved in matters about their child’s education. Parents can opt to take they’re their children to private schools of their choice if their budget allows it. School choice opens equal opportunities to low income or middle-income families to select schools of better educational value as they consider appropriate for their kids. Parents have options such as; intradistrict choice, interdistrict choice, charter school, private school, and others such as homeschooling and distant learning. Public schools are government-funded, and the state makes the applied decisions. They are easily accessible and are free to all children. Public schools have guidelines that are set in place by state regulators.

Charter schools are public schools that incur no tuition fees. Parents, teachers, and the community establish charter schools independent of the state. They are not subject to some state or federal requirements. Charter schools encourage high parental involvement. They serve low-income students. Magnet schools are also public schools without tuition requirements. Magnet schools offer specific focus, such as on science, arts, or mathematics. They require students to take tests to qualify for enrollment. Virtual schools, also referred to as distance learning, is conducted via the internet, and they are also subject to government and district guidelines. Private schools are categorized to be either religious or secular. They charge tuition and support parental beliefs. Home schools are those in which parents are the teachers and provide students with personalized instructions customized to their own pace and learning style. School choice improves civic outcomes, reduces crime, enhances racial integration, and competition among public schools.

Introduction

Allowing parents to choose the school their child will attend has a positive impact on performance. This statement is substantially integrated with the concept of school choice. School choice could entail public schooling, homeschooling, private schooling, and distant learning. The decisions are greatly influenced by the neighborhood involved. Some communities have one elementary school, one intermediate school, and one high school, depending on its population density. The children in such communities can attend these available district schools, choose to go to private school, have homeschooled, or distant learning. Parents select the style of education that best suits their children. Some districts are comprised of multiple schools; students in such regions are provided with a choice to pick a school outside their intermediate neighborhood. High population densities offer additional decisions such as magnet and charter schools, which require no tuition.

School choice has pros and cons. The advantages include; it enhances student safety. Parents exercise school choice to keep their children from schools where gang-related violence and bullying are collective. School choice supports and increases parental involvement and satisfaction. Parents become more involved in their children’s education when they are given the authority to choose the school their child will attend. School choice offers student-specific education whereby the parent wants a school that provides facilities tailored to their child’s specific needs. Student-specific education can include parents to students with special needs such as cerebral palsy. Some of the choices available to support student-specific education are schooling-at-home programs. School choice provides options for low-income families by ensuring that access to quality education isn’t conditional. It also leads to high graduation rates and academic improvement. It raises the standards of education by promoting competition among schools and helps to instill moral values.

Some cons of school choice are that the funds are channeled away from already struggling public schools to support private schools. Another disadvantage is that private schools rarely cooperate with students with special needs; therefore, such students are unable to use vouchers. Another problem is, parents don’t always make the right choices for their children, and they are required to way the pros and cons of the available individual schools to make the right choice.

Publicly funded private school choice is referred to as school vouchers. School vouchers ensure that families are provided with funds that enable them to take their children to private schools of their choice. Tax-credit scholarships make part of public-school choices. These programs make it cheaper for parents to choose not to go to the assigned public school but to send their children to other schools that are consistent with their interests and needs.

School choice programs lead to improved student performance. There are two mechanisms employed by school choice programs that lead to enhanced student performance. These mechanisms include; market competition and student-school match. Competitive pressures created between different types of schooling programs lead to enhanced performance as well as quality improvement. Improved performance is directly proportional to the betterment of a school’s quality. Parents make school choice program decisions via their subjective definitions of quality. They could make such decisions based on; standardized test scores, school mission, culture, and safety. (Stewart and Wolf 2016). Individual preferences influence a parent’s school choice. Such preferences may include; better curriculum, better academic performance, pleasant learning environment, school convenience, school safety, preferred religious and moral instructions, programs such as sport, and a child’s preferences.

Parental choice in the student-school matches is the ability of parents to choose educational institutions for their children. School match promotes student performance since it enables them to attend schools that meet their desires, learning styles, unique interests, and ability levels. Student-school match is done based on; school safety, income, gender, family culture, test scores, and learning styles.

Pros of school choice programs

School choice promotes student safety. Student safety was among the main reasons parents exercised school choice. Among approximately 15,000 respondents in Florida, 36% pointed out security as one of their main priorities when choosing a school for their children. Safe schools ensure students are protected from violence, bullying, exposure to weapons, exposure to threats, theft, and substance use. School safety is linked to both student and school performance. Students who have been victimized by physical or emotional harassment or have been involved in substance abuse exhibit poor attendance, poor performance, and ultimately end up as school dropouts.

Safety can be categorized as; physical safety, psychosocial safety, school transportation safety, background verification of staff, and visitor management systems. Physical security entails the school’s environment, such as ensuring buildings, playgrounds, laboratories, toilets, and swimming pools are free of potential hazards. Physical security can be achieved by enforcing measures such as placing of fire safety equipment in all classrooms and corridors or ensuring drinking water is safe for human consumption. Psychological safety could involve looking out for forms of child abuse and responding accordingly. This can be enhanced by placing CCTV cameras in designated areas to monitor all activities within a school’s premises. Transportation safety is also essential. Proper maintenance of school buses and the employment of qualified drivers promote transportation safety. Background verification of staff entails pre-employment background checks for teachers and support staff. Ensure any team who is employed is not involved in any criminal activities and verifies whether job applicants have previous criminal records. Visitors’ management systems are also used to enhance student safety.  Such systems can be comprised of; generic tags for visitors, collecting visitor’s sign-in information such as identification cards, and biometric security systems that ensure restricted access to school premises and property.

Secondly, school choice increases parental satisfaction and involvement. Parents tend to be more satisfied with the schools they have chosen.  The level of parental involvement and motivation show evidence of achievement. For example, a parent may decide to enroll her child in a private school because he perceives that communication and parent involvement are more valued and easily facilitated in private schools. According to survey respondents in Arizona’s innovative education savings account program, more than 70% of them were “delighted” with their school choice. Parental choice of school is influenced by convenience and dissatisfaction with the current school. Parental satisfaction is achieved by the freedom to make choices among parents. Parents choose schools rationally based on personal interests and needs.   Schools operate in ways meant to satisfy parent’s needs. Parents tend to be more supportive and comfortable with the schools they have chosen. According to Goldring and Bauch 1993, parental involvement is significantly facilitated by catholic schools both at school and at home. They convey the school’s orientation towards discipline and responsibility in managing children at home. Parental involvement and satisfaction can significantly improve performance at student and school level.

School choice also enhances racial integration. Students in integrated schools have educational, civic, and socioeconomic benefits. They are more likely to enroll in college, less likely to drop out, have higher average test scores as compared to those in segregated high-poverty schools. Students in integrated schools have better creative and problem- solving skills. Integration reduces racial achievement gaps. When parents exercise school choice and enroll their children in schools other than the locally assigned schools, racial diversity is encouraged. Racial diversity is exposure to peers of different backgrounds, which minimizes racial bias and counters stereotypes. Integration builds a student’s self-confidence and satisfaction. It improves student’s leadership skills and reduces anxiety.

The freedom offered to parents to choose their children’s school leads to increased graduation rates and academic improvement. Vouchers, tax-credit scholarship programs, and education savings accounts provide funding to low-income families, offering them a choice to attend private schools. There was a 21% increase in graduation rates for D.C Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) and a 7% increase for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP).

School choice offers individual-specific education. This is education tailored to the student’s needs. This can be achieved by taking into consideration whether a student has a particular urgency. Students with special needs such as autism, cerebral palsy may require schooling-at-home programs that would be significantly customized for them. School choice provides options for low-income families. A family’s ability to pay for tuition or buy expensive property doesn’t influence its ability to access quality education.

The educational standards are raised as a result of school choice. This happens as a result of the competitive pressure it puts on schools. Completion occurs only when there are options or alternatives, and when there is variation is features. Competition is primarily driven by the loss of funding that arises as a result of changes in enrollment. Popular schools attract more students and should gain financing as compared to unpopular schools that lose students and thus lose financing as well. Competitive pressure results in closure and restructuring of unpopular schools. Competitiveness can be increased by innovation through school choice. Parents pick schools that show more promising educational outcomes, such as innovations. Public schools tend to improve their quality standards when subjected to choose and competition. The main component of competitive pressures is the presence of alternative schools in addition to traditional schools. Traditional and alternative school choices vary greatly in teacher workforce, school autonomy, levels of parent involvement, curriculum, length of the school year, and quality of facilities.

Also, school choice programs increase schools’ accountability. It creates direct responsibility to parents because parents are the education providers’ stakeholders. It also helps in instilling moral values in students. This can be achieved via character education, which provides students with core values alongside academic instruction. Character education teaches values, ethics, and a sense of civics. Parents prefer to choose schools that offer character education over those that fail to provide it. Character education can improve student performance by instilling values such as discipline, honesty, and respect for others.

Cons of school choice programs

 Public schools offer a wide range of free services to students who need extra or enhanced instruction, special services or equipment, or other educational accommodations as required by law. Private schools, however, do not have those same requirements. They do not have to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires the provision of things such as wheelchair ramps, note-takers, and sign-language interpreters. Private schools also don’t have to follow the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires that public schools provide all children with an “ambitious” educational program, rather than the bare minimum. Private schools are unlikely to accept children with special needs, as they may require extra fees (billed to the parents) for services, and are under no obligation to follow Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).

School choice programs also exhibit a negative effect on the public school system whereby funds are taken from public schools to support school voucher programs that enable parents to enroll their children in private schools of their choice.  Families who are capable of sending their children to private schools should cater to the resulting bills instead of taking money from public school students coming from low-income families.

Conclusion

Parental choice in school selection has more pros than cons, which proves the hypothesis, “allowing parents to choose the school their child will attend has a positive impact on performance” actual. Advantages of school choice include; student safety, increased parental satisfaction and involvement, high graduation rates, enhances school’s accountability, raises educational standards via competitive pressure, offers character education, provides alternatives for low-income families, and offers student-specific training. Therefore, school systems should allow parents to choose which local school their child will attend.