It's odd what school choice advocates will say to argue their point. Take, for instance, a recent suggestion that subsidized voucher systems would do for the schools what competition from Fed Ex and UPS has done for the United States Postal Service. The Postal Service was forced to introduce order tracking and other improvements, making it a much more businesslike, results-driven operation; a voucher system, the argument goes, would do the same for public schools.
The analogy is far more apt than I think was intended, because, as we all know, the USPS is staring at insolvency, with billions of dollars of losses. Why? Inefficiencies and labor costs are part of the reason, but what will doom the Postal Service in the long run is being stuck with the mail private carriers refuse to handle. "By cutting back on mailboxes, collections, stamp machines and window clerks they seem poised to get rid of first class," one commentator on periodicals industry blog Dead Tree Edition opined. "That will leave the PO with nothing but junk mail and whatever UPS and Fed-Ex don't want."
Add to this that the Postal Service has a federal mandate to deliver mail to every corner of the land, including those areas unprofitable for delivery. Private carriers have no such burden. They can pick and choose who gets the mail.
In other words, a public agency charged to provide universal, quality service is being gutted of its most profitable business by private entities with an unfair competitive advantage. Those who can choose the best product naturally have the best results; those who can't get whatever is left behind.
This reminds me of what is happening to our public schools.
Here in Philadelphia, as in many other U.S. cities, flight from public schools has created a self-reinforcing ghetto system, as kids with means and good home support continue to trickle away to independent and parochial schools. A federally-supported voucher system could make flight from public education the norm across America, not just in urban areas.
The fewer quality students there are, the worse schools will get, leading to even more abandonment. The smaller the constituency of public-school users, the smaller the appetite for paying taxes to support them. As public schools become mere dumping grounds for the impoverished, underprivileged and—yes—poorly raised, school choice advocates will call for specially equipped, very expensive, publicly-funded institutions to "handle" them. We might as well just merge the schools with the prisons at that point.
Is this the educational system we want for our children?
Three things need to happen to improve public education in the United States. First, activists need to put less emphasis on the idea that schools improve communities, and focus more on the notion that communities (students, parents, programs that teach respect for education and support families) improve schools. Second, our funding for public education must become more equitable, establishing a baseline for quality education across all districts nationwide. Third, we must recognize that subsidized school choice offers no solution to inequality and social decline—and may accomplish the exact opposite.
The first step requires courage from mostly liberal education advocates willing to abandon long-held policy assumptions (e.g. paying teachers more or purchasing computers for classrooms is not always the magic bullet). The third, similar gumption from mostly conservative advocates for school choice. The second step ought to be supported by everyone, but could never succeed on its own without a commitment across the political spectrum on the other two.
Following this model, perhaps we can bring real reform to education—all while keeping more children out of the dead letter office.
