BLOG ASSIGNMENT PART 4

The option of choice when it comes to public schools is really not a choice at all. This is because we are tricked into believing we have limitless choices, but really the only people who do are people from privileged backgrounds. School choice does not improve public education because the only ones benefiting from it are students whose parents have a high socioeconomic status. Children who live in impoverished neighborhoods end up only having the option to go to schools in that area, and often they are not given the same quality or funds as schools that are in more affluent areas. In Willow Lung-Amam’s journal entry “The Not-So-New South Suburbs” from RSF: The Russel Foundation Journal of the Social Science as discussed in the previous blog, Lung-Amam discusses a redistricting issue that occurred in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and the opposition that the district faced from Asian immigrant parents. Lung-Amam states in this article,“Before the first public meeting, the advisory council indicated their support for the plan that prioritized socioeconomic diversity and spreading "at-risk" students around the district. The district defined at-risk students by various socioeconomic and academic performance indicators.” The fact that the main goal for this plan was stated as being a way to spread around the lower socioeconomic students to better performing schools shows that they were clearly being neglected for a substantial amount of time. This further amplifies the theory of the illusion of choice when it comes to children’s education options; they are limited to what their parents income and connections are. 

When private funding and building of schools occurs this takes away from public education. These schools often pay their teachers more and have less rigid requirements because they do not have a course curriculum to follow compared to the requirements that are regulated for public schools. This results in less diverse public schools because those who can afford not to often associate private, charter, and other similar institutions as being better options with little to no real research. As stated in article titled “The Battle Over Charter Schools” posted on The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s in ED. MAGAZINE online,”Finn cites seven other “ancestors” of chartering including a growing emphasis on educational outcomes and equity, and ‘the impetus to replace a bureaucratic quasi monopoly with a competitive marketplace.’ Finn, president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank, says the propulsion toward school choice is and has always been that ‘way too few kids in America have been able to pick their schools, and way too many have been stuck in bad schools that they have no alternative to.’As Dean James Ryan wrote in an Ed Week blog, ‘Are you comfortable allowing more affluent families to choose their schools while denying poorer families similar opportunities?’ “ We should focus on creating various opportunities in the schools that already exist instead of creating a market that all are not able to access. The illusion of choice is one that hinders marginalized community members from giving their children a chance.