Recently, Jonathan Pedde argued that the dismal state of American public education can only be remedied by the universal institution of school choice programs ("Still Waiting for Choice," Feb. 1). Pedde and I were both moved upon viewing "Waiting for Superman," a heart-wrenching documentary about several American students who attempt to procure a better education by entering lotteries for public charter schools. However, I must strongly object to Pedde's claim that school choice will do anything to help the scores of underprivileged children who are shuffled through grossly inadequate public schools. Such programs cripple crucial efforts to reform our public schools, and leave behind the numerous students who are unable to secure spots in a limited number of private schools.
In the context of American political discourse, "school choice" most often refers to voucher programs. In the voucher system, the government pays for a student to leave public school and join a presumably higher-performing private school. It is important to note that these funds would otherwise have been allocated towards public schools. As Pedde noted, "Waiting for Superman" does not advocate for these types of programs. Instead, the documentary argued that some charter schools that have greater latitude in hiring and firing teachers, employ longer school days and set more rigorous curricula can serve as an effective model for public education.
Government funding for vouchers directly affects the public education system by drawing money away from public schools and into the coffers of already wealthy private schools. Fundamental reforms to public education, such as increasing teacher salaries and the construction of rigorous charter schools, are doomed to failure if the very purveyor of public education is funneling resources away from the system.
Advocates of school choice also fail to acknowledge that those underprivileged students who most direly need good schools are the least likely to benefit from a voucher system. Perhaps the most agonizing scene in "Waiting for Superman" was the one in which we see the lotteries that determine which students get access to high-performing public charter schools. All the students participating in those lotteries shared two qualities: They were highly dedicated and talented individuals and they had parents or guardians who were similarly committed to the their education. These are the families that would stand to benefit the most from school choice.
While it was tremendously sad to see the majority of these students turned away from better schools, I was most heartbroken when thinking about all of the kids who weren't in the room during the lottery. If school choice were to be instituted, what would happen to all the students who were not similarly motivated and who did not have committed families? They would be left to languish in a chronically underfunded and archaic public school. The problems of American education will not be solved by shuttling the most promising students out of failing public schools and leaving the rest to rot.
One of my high school teachers once recounted her experience working in an inner-city public school. One year, despite vehement objections from her teacher's union, she decided to begin offering extra help to her geometry students after school. She was immediately ostracized professionally by the union and socially by her fellow colleagues. She endured this hostile environment for a short time, before quitting to join a school that better valued her dedication and talent. That school was my private high school. Who lost in this situation? It certainly wasn't my upper-middle class peers and me. It was the students who had lost a talented and determined role model, just as they had lost talented and determined peers who qualified for selective private schools and charter schools.
America's place as the driving force for intellectual and technological innovation in the world will not be sustained if we succeed only in educating the most dedicated and privileged. A process by which a minority of students compete in public charter lotteries and voucher programs is detrimental to the goals of public education. "Waiting for Superman" demonstrated that, through significant reforms within the public school system that go beyond merely shuffling students from school to school, we can finally succeed in bringing better education to Americans of all backgrounds.