America seems beset by a bewildering array of problems today. As always when faced with problems, Americans turn to their schools. Elected officials get a rousing vote of confidence when recommending that schools take a hand in solving problems. But, in fact, schools are one of the problems we are worried about.
The problems have been exhaustively discussed in special reports and the media for the last decade. Many deficiencies are cited, and two outcomes are reported over and over: First, based on the expectations of employers, youngsters graduating from school today do not have a good foundation of skills and knowledge. Second, compared with American youngsters in the past and with those in other countries, the test scores of American youths today are lower.
The federal government, states, local communities, and individual schools have all tried a variety of strategies to bring about improvement, the most recent of which is called choice. Choice is an attempt to give parents a chance to decide what public school their child will attend.
For the sake of efficient management, local school systems currently draw boundaries so that a reasonably equal number of children attend each school in the district. Each school receives the same amount of financial support from the state and the local district. In theory, all schools should be the same, but in fact they are not. A broad pattern of research that began in England in the 1970s shows how schools are distinct based on the different ways people interact.
By giving parents a chance to decide what school their child will attend, parents become more involved in what goes on in the school. This involvement is expected to have a positive impact on the interaction among teachers, administrators, children, and support staff. Currently, there are at least 20 states with choice programs in place or in which legislation has been proposed. Unfortunately, these programs reveal no agreement on how choice should work.
In Florida, for instance, choice means that students in high school may attend community college classes. Minnesota's much more comprehensive program permits juniors and seniors in high school to apply to take courses in any degree-granting postsecondary institution in the state, with their tuition paid by the state and then subtracted from the funds allocated to the student's school district. In Maine and Arizona, choice also means that high school students may attend classes in postsecondary institutions.
In several states, choice means support of magnet schools - schools that have selected a field, such as art or technical education, on which to concentrate their efforts. Virginia supports several regional magnet schools. North Carolina has for many years supported a residential school for high school juniors and seniors in math and science; so does Louisiana, which adds art to the curriculum. Missouri, New York, and Wisconsin support magnet schools in local school districts to increase integration.
Massachusetts, Minnesota, California, Colorado, and Iowa allow students to transfer from one school to another or from one district to another. In each state there are certain restrictions. In California, only elementary students may transfer. In Colorado, only high school students
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