JLF’s Terry Stoops writes today about the entrenched opposition to parental choice within the Big Education monopoly, focusing specifically on comments made by Superintendent June Atkinson about House Bill 944 — the Opportunity Scholarship Act. The bill would provide low-income kids with a $4,200 voucher to attend the private school of his/her choice.
She contended that private schools that accept taxpayer-funded voucher students should be subject to the same accountability requirements as district schools. These requirements include A-through-F school grades, standardized test scores, and public reporting of both.
First, what would happen if the House Education Committee had called her bluff? Specifically, if the bill sponsors had included school grades and accountability reporting in H.B. 944, would Atkinson have supported the bill?
I doubt it. She has not supported school choice measures in the past, and I suspect a few tweaks to the legislation would not change her mind. For this reason, I would rather Atkinson simply oppose the bill, rather than maintain the pretense that the state cares about the well-being of parents so much that it wants strong accountability measures for private schools.
Second, let’s consider the reverse scenario — private school accountability for district schools. Private schools live and die by the choices of parents. If parents are not satisfied with the educational environment of the private school they choose for their children, they will take their money and children elsewhere. That is a powerful incentive for private schools to ensure that the children they serve receive the education that best meets the needs of the children entrusted to them.
District schools need not worry about parental accountability. District schools are monopolies, and families have few alternatives, unless they are relatively wealthy, make sacrifices to pay private school tuition, forgo income to home school, or have a charter school in the vicinity. That is one reason our legislature mandates other forms of accountability, such as school grades and testing, to ensure that public schools spend billions in taxpayer dollars in productive ways.
Bottom line: defenders of the education status quo don’t want competition.
