Why is the left opposed to school choice?

[Del Tachi]

Ideally, public money should be spent on public education and it is honestly a travesty when tax dollars flow towards already well-funded private schools through vouchers at the expense of students in poor-performing public schools.  Struggling schools should be given access to more resources in order to improve outcomes for their students, not have funding and their best and brightest students stripped away from them due to vouchers.   

Additionally, "school choice" as conservatives like to call it, is oftentimes an underhanded tactic to lock poor and minority students in under-performing school districts.  In the most recent legislative session in Mississippi, for example, the Governor and Lieutenant Governor pushed for a bill in the state legislature that would have allowed parents to send their children to school in other counties/school districts if their local public school was ranked as under-performing.  Of course, the end result of such a measure would be that wealthier parents (read: White people) would be able to transport their kids to neighboring, Whiter school districts while children with two working parents or without access to a vehicle would literally be stuck in a failing school due to lack of mobility.  Even more dastardly was that, coupled with this proposal, was a call that funding "should follow the student" and that school districts should lose funding based on losing students to neighboring districts.  Essentially, White, urban school districts would have seen an increase in funding while the poorer, Blacker rural districts would have lost money, leaving their school districts with even less funds to educate their predominantly impoverished students who need more resources to reach the same outcomes as better-off students.

Our public schools should be the center of our communities.  This means that parents who live and work within a community should be forced to send their kids to local public schools.  We all need to have a stake in our local communities' public schools if we are serious about improving them.

Ideally, my model for public education would be extremely radical even by the left's standards.  I would favor a complete federalization of K-12 education where all teachers/school administrators would become employees of DeptEd and all local financing would be eliminated in favor of federal per-student funding formulas that heavily took into consideration student need.  Washington bureaucrats would write national benchmark standards for every grade, and passing a standardized test would be required for grade advancement.  Place on ban on vouchers and charter schools, of course, and, if found to be Constitutional, I would support an outright ban on private education.         

[Del Tachi]

As I read the posts in the thread two thoughts seem worth noting. First, the thread seems to overlook the competitive mix of choices for higher education. For those who say that higher ed is different than K-12, I would note that reasonable lifetime earnings growth generally demands some post-hs ed, far more than was needed 30 years ago. Second, private education can be either for-profit or non-profit and they are quite different entities. Many supporters of school choice would say that public dollars could go to non-profit private schools, but not for-profit ones.

Sorry to break it to you but higher ed is an entirely different animal than K-12.  If there was no right to universal access to K-12, then it would be fine to run public education like the University system.  However, since K-12 education is a right in this country than equal access to it must be guaranteed for all regardless of location, race or socioeconomic status.    

Secondly, I don't have a problem with "for-profit private schools" per se but I do take severe issue with any amount of public money going to finance private education.  Ideally, tax dollars should be spent to the benefit of all students - not just those with the access and mobility to opt for a private school. 

[Del Tachi]

One key factor to look at, is whether by virtue of students having the option to vote with their feet, and leave the comprehensive public school system, that such competition, and fear of empty desks and loss of public school teacher jobs, will incentivize the public schools to offer a better educational product because they no longer have a captive student monopoly.

The problem is that not all students are able to vote with their feet.

For children living in poverty, without access to a private vehicle, or with two working parents it is oftentimes simply not possible for them to do anything other than be bused to their local public school.  "School choice" would be a much more serious proposal if taxpayers were going to foot the bill for a single student to be bused 90 minutes one-direction twice a day. A student's ability to get a good education should not be dependent on the willingness of his parents to transport him to school.     

Vouchers are a waste of public money - the students who need them the most are often unable to take advantage of them due to a variety of demographic/socioeconomic factors beyond the State's control, and the students who do take advantage of them are often already the most high-achieving students in their respective districts.  The money spent on vouchers would be much better utilized helping to lessen the inherent disadvantages that some students face due to their backgrounds.