EVENTS

Date:	Monday, November 10, 2008
Time:	1:30 PM -- 3:00 PM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

Verdict Still Out on School Choice

WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 13, 2008--Nearly two decades have passed since the Wisconsin legislature enacted the nation's first modern school voucher program in Milwaukee. Today, more than 150,000 students are enrolled in private school choice programs in twenty-four states and the District of Columbia. At an AEI conference on November 10, panelists offered a range of perspectives on the goals of school choice and whether it is poised to deliver the kind of results that enthusiasts first promised.

Robert Enlow, executive director of the Friedman Foundation for Education Choice, said that choice has led unmistakably to positive academic gains for students. "There have been seventeen studies of school choice programs in K-12, and sixteen have showed improvement in boosting academic performance," he said. Enlow also pointed to evidence that choice programs tend to instill higher levels of civic participation and allow students to attend schools with fewer disciplinary problems. Still, he said, not all choice programs are well-designed, and "we have too often sold Timex watches as the Rolex of market-based reform."

Howard Fuller, director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University, who has been dubbed the "patron saint" of the Milwaukee voucher program, said that choice is a civil rights imperative for poor and minority students. "We must understand both the power of choice and the limits of choice," he said. "For me, the idea is all about social justice. We should not have a society where only people with the most money can choose the best schools." Fuller added that while he sees choice as a necessary tool for expanding educational opportunities, it is by no means a panacea. "Choice is simply an instrument that allows you to fight for access," he said.

Joe Williams, president of Democrats for Education Reform, said that in the current political environment, "choice as a concept is inevitable, whether it is in K-12 schooling or anything else." He said that while he is "swayed more by the social justice argument than the systemic reform argument," it is undeniable that choice programs, especially charter schools, are making inroads across the political divide. As evidence, Williams cited President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to double funding for charter schools and the growing enthusiasm for charters in the Democratic National Committee platform. "Democrats will have to be responsive to choice because of all of those advocating for it," he said.

Choice has largely failed to live up to its billing, Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said. He noted that a lack of data makes it difficult to gauge its actual effectiveness. "We've argued for gains in standardized tests as evidence of success, which is misplaced," he added. Stern said that while he favors private scholarship programs, reformers must pay more attention to the instructional delivery inside classrooms. "Children are not educated in schools, they're educated in classrooms with individual teachers," he said. "The schools they attend have little to do with whether they're receiving good instruction."

Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at AEI, said that although he believes strongly in expanding educational options for students, choice has too often substituted for real, market-based strategies. "The term 'choice' has confused our thinking on this issue," he said. "Market-based reforms should be discussed in terms of deregulation, with attention to the supply and demand sides." Hess echoed many of the themes in his recent Education Outlook about the need to create the preconditions necessary for a robust supply of dynamic education providers. These include addressing human and financial capital challenges, overcoming barriers to entry, investing in research and development, and strengthening quality control. "If school choice is to enjoy a brighter future than wave upon wave of supposed school reforms past," he said, "it is time for reformers to fight not just for choice but for good choices."

--THOMAS GIFT

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