Paul T. Hill and Kacey Guin, University of Washington
Education Policy Analysis Archives
October 2003
This short but useful paper makes an undeniable point: that any school choice program, to be judged fairly, should be compared to the existing public school system, not to its "idealized aspirations." In other words, those who argue that choice programs - be they charters, vouchers, or otherwise - are flawed often overlook the fact that our public schools themselves are imperfect. School choice reforms come under attack for potentially "skimming" the best students, leaving poor and minority students in the worst schools; yet our public schools are already divided along these lines. Choice critics fear that resources might be distributed unfairly; yet public schools often spend far more on their best students than on their neediest. Such critiques and more come under fire in this paper, which neatly summarizes the aspects of today's public schools against which any choice proposal should be measured. All school systems contain mechanisms for choice - families can move and parents can pester administrators for favored treatment - but usually these are bureaucratic and thus hard to monitor and manage. With open forms of choice, winners and losers are visible, and programs can be designed to benefit those most in need. Why then does the burden of proof lie with choice proponents, to show that their proposals will do no harm, rather than with opponents, to prove that today's public schools are better than all alternatives? Here Hill and Guin deftly point out the absurdity of this double standard. To read for yourself, visit http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n39/.
