Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 21, 1993 TAG: 9301210460
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK E. RUSH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`CHOICE' WON'T CURE PUBLIC-SCHOOL ILLS
WERE IT NOT for the allies' military response to Saddam Hussein's incursions into Kuwait, President Clinton's decision to send his daughter Chelsea to the private, religious Sidwell Friends School might still be making headlines. Critics still shout their outrage and accuse the president of hypocrisy because of his stands against the idea of school choice. As former Vice President Dan Quayle so deftly responded to Vice President Al Gore during the vice-presidential debates, this shows that the Democrats are in favor of school choice only for those who can afford to send their children to expensive private schools. The best that the rest of us can hope for is a choice among public-school options - something which President Clinton never even considered for his daughter.The sad irony to the controversy is that it is probably quite safe to bet that few of Clinton's critics would have acted differently. No one who loves their children would opt willingly to subject them to the dangers that exist in many of our urban public-school systems. So why should we expect the president of the United States to use his daughter to make a statement?
In many ways the school-choice issue is, at best, a nonissue and, at worst, a red herring that does a wonderful job of diverting the nation's attention from the real problems confronting our public-school systems. School-choice proposals are designed to provide people with an opportunity to escape the violence, lack of discipline and, in some cases, poor quality of instruction that characterize urban public schools. Although the provision of such an option certainly helps parents and students alike, it does not address directly the fact that our schools suffer because the strength of the National Education Association and teachers' unions prevents the monitoring of instruction. Also, public-advocacy groups make it difficult for even the best administrators and teachers to impose discipline or even expel disruptive students.
Furthermore, many urban public-school bureaucracies are so bloated with excess staff that most of the monies earmarked for education are spent on items other than the education of students. However, to streamline such byzantine bureaucratic establishments would result in joblessness for significant portions of the urban middle class.
Thus, school choice will do little to solve the enduring problems that currently manifest themselves in our urban school systems. Students behave violently because they come from violent environments, and because teachers and school administrators are frequently prevented from disciplining or expelling such students. The problem is one that develops outside the school - not within it. If these same students go to some other school by choice, can we realistically expect that they will change their violent behavior simply because they now attend school in a different building?
School choice is attractive to any parent confronted with the prospects of sending their children to an inner-city school. However, its end result will merely provide an escape route for those who were too poor to buy a house in the suburbs and thereby join the white flight that occurred in the wake of school-desegregation orders. Similarly, the school-choice placebo will fail to cure the social ills that manifest themselves in our nation's public-school systems.
Mark E. Rush is associate professor of politics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington.