Public School Choice Essay -- Research Education Educational Essays

Public School Choice Public School Choice is an easy program to understand and it contains many advantages but also many disadvantages. Public School Choice is when parents can elect to send their children out of a school that has not made adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years into a school that has made progress. (McClure, 2002) If there are no available schools within the original school district, then a family can choose to send their children to another district. This only happens when the other schools in the original district are all labeled as ‘underachieving schools’ and have not made the adequate yearly progress. (McClure, 2002) Some of the advantages to this new public school choice option include: offers a way out of a low performing school, supports educational innovation because it supports alternatives to the traditional school day, school choice can match child and parents needs thus parents will be involved and more committed to the school and their child’s learning experience. (O’Neil, 1996) There are some restrictions when one thinks about the public school choice option. Restrictions include claims that all schools are too crowded, short windows of opportunity for parents to exercise choice, when parent can choose if they want to use school choice or not, and outright restrictions on which schools can participate in public school choice program. (Snell, 2002) Other disadvantages include: create inequalities by taking the more desirable students, fewer opportunities to learn from students of different backgrounds, and changes the focus from education for the public good to education for the private good. Education is no longer being seen as providing ‘some common experience in common se... ...nts Choose Choice. Academic Search/EBSCO databases, pp.63. Retrieved March 6, 2003. Ellig, J. (1999). Issue Analysis 96-School Choice:Issues and Answers. [55 paragrphs]. Retrieved April 3, 2003 from the World Wide Web: www.cse.org/informed/issues_template.php?issue_id=669 Snell, L. (2002). Meaningful Public School Choice. [15 paragraphs]. Retrieved April 3, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.rppi.org/publicschoolchoice.html United States Department of Education (1997). Overview of Charter Schools. Retrieved April 3, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://uscharterschools.org/pub/uscs_docs/gi/overview.htm Van Dunk, E. (2003). Pros and Cons of School Choice. Retrieved April 3, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.joycefdn.org/articles/eduarticles/0301prosandcons.html O’Neil, J. (1996) New Options, Old Concerns. Educational Leadership, 54, 6-8.