Traditional Public Schools Are Not the Model of Inclusion Proponents Think
Author: Alex Adrianson
“Vouchers drain money from public schools so that some students can go to private schools.” Somewhere in the vicinity of that declarative sentence – which school choice critics regard as some sort of argument -lurks the thought that vouchers must equal special advantages for some students that are denied to others. Guess what? That’s what the system of public schools is.
A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has identified 2,817 public schools around the country that serve very few poor students. These “private public schools,” as the Fordham report calls them, are either elementary schools where students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches make up less than 5 percent of the school’s enrollment, or middle schools or high schools where fewer than 3 percent of students are reported to be poor. Nationwide, 44 percent of public school students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. In total, these “private public schools” serve 4 percent of all public school students.
These schools also tend to be racially segregated. Nationwide, 17 percent of primary school students are African-American and 21 percent are Hispanic. But in the 2,817 “private public schools” identified by Fordham, only 3 percent of students are African-American and only 12 percent are Hispanic. It’s not an accident that so many public schools end up with skewed demographics. As the authors of the report, Michael Petrilli and Janie Scull, point out, “[these schools’] demographics generally are products of public policies and community decisions.” Remember, many students live in states that require them to attend their district school.
It should be obvious that there is a public policy option that is ready-made to provide opportunities for children in poor neighborhoods to attend a better school: school choice. Those who want a more inclusive school system should support school choice.
See “America’s Private Public Schools,” by Michael J. Petrilli and Janie Scull, published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, February 2010.
As we reported last week, 2009 will mark the first time ever in American history that the majority of union members work for federal, state, or local governments. The percentage shift has been staggering. In 1973 only 17.3% of union members worked for government. Today that number is 51.2%.
When unions depended on steel plants, coal mines, and automobile factories for their livelihood there was at least a chance that they would support some pro-growth public policies. But now that unions are dependent on the government, and not the private sector, for their membership dues pro-growth policies are not a priority at all. Hence the Big Labor/enviro alliance behind carbon cap and trade tax programs.
Worse, unions now have every incentive to grow government at the expense of taxpayers and private sector jobs. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Steven Malanga explains:
In the private sector … employers who are too generous with pay and benefits will be punished. In the public sector, however, more union members means more voters. And more voters means more dollars for political campaigns to elect sympathetic politicians who will enact higher taxes to foot the bill for the upward arc of government spending on workers
Big Labor has already bankrupted our nation’s once great auto industry. But who will Big Labor turn to when Big Government has bankrupted us?