A refreshingly objective look at school choice
Monday, November 17, 2008Written by: Ben DeGrow
A great event was held Friday for Colorado’s education policy wonks. In case you missed it, Dr. John Witte took some time from his vacation (and helping his daughter paint her new house) to discuss “The Past, Present, and Future of Educational Choice”-no small feat. Thanks to Paul Teske and the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs for hosting the event, and to Piton and Donnell-Kay Foundations for the boxed lunch.
It’s always good to be reminded from a reasonably objective academic what can be said from the research and what cannot. Since I’m not an academic myself - nor do I even dare try to play one on TV - I will neither bore you nor wade too deeply into the details. But I did take home a few of my own interesting observations from Witte’s discussion:
1. It’s well past time to move beyond the “choice is a panacea” debate. Because even if choice isn’t a panacea, that shouldn’t disqualify it as a vital and important reform strategy. A drug doesn’t have to cure all diseases to be of tremendous value. (Of course, it is unclear when and how the experimental phase of private school choice can be expanded at this point.)
2. It was noteworthy to see that the only education research Witte savaged was indeed Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities. Meanwhile, Witte mentioned highly credible researchers like Patrick Wolf and Jay Greene, who some commenters on this site have savaged for also happening to have an informed opinion, without passing editorial remarks. They may have disagreement about certain conclusions, the respect among professional colleagues at least was somewhat apparent.
3. I had to go look up the study on Florida and Chicago charter school students being “7 to 15 percentage points more likely to earn a standard diploma” than their traditional public school counterparts. Even though I’ve only had a chance to read the summary thus far, this looks like some powerful stuff.
4. I was glad to see Witte raise the undeniable point that studies of charter schools and vouchers repeatedly and consistently show an improvement in parental satisfaction. Of course, this raises more questions to be answered by further research, but should get policy makers thinking.
5. Perhaps the most interesting part of the event was the information on Witte’s research about the effects of open enrollment and how it works in tandem with charter schools and private school choice. I want to go back and take a closer look.
Since the discussion was so rich, I’m sure others may have taken away different points of interest of their own. But it’s always good to keep the education policy community focused on what the research really says and where it’s going.
