The Politics and Implications of K-12 School Choice, Research Paper Example

The K-12 education system is the cradle of education to many people in the community because that is where learning begins. In this case, therefore, members of the community normally commit themselves to ensure that even those people that are vulnerable and cannot afford education are supported through tuition scholarships and vouchers. Under the same scenario, the government also intervenes in this case and help by the provision of these vouchers and other scholarship opportunities through tuition help so that they ensure that all low-income citizens and those that are unable to get school fees, or the ones are supported financially to cater for the education of these children especially vulnerable those still under the K-12 education systems. Despite this, normally, there are several political issues that affect the selection of these tuition scholarships and vouchers that will be discussed in depth later in this article. Therefore, it is the role of the community to determine how they will deal with challenges, especially on how they affect the school choice under this system of education. Therefore, in this article, we will discuss more the history, challenges, and its impact on the community and the implications of the issue of school choice, and the topic of tuition scholarships and vouchers.

Historical Basis

To begin with, we will look at the history of K-12 school choice and the debate on the issue of tuition scholarships and vouchers by the government. The matter of school choice dates back in time and as it is generally based on the right of freedom of choice whereby the parents get to have the choice to decide the schools that they want their children to learn from according to the qualifications of the child and the ability of the parent to pay the school fees of that child. Despite this, the government is the body that is required to set these standards for the students and also determine how this whole process of school choice is done by the parents and the education officials in the system.

In another perspective, the issue of school choice is a matter of gaining and losing, whereby the schools that people choose tend to gain, and the rest lose. However, according to the way the governments implement this system, no school loses totally, whether private or public. Thus, most of the contention about the schools that lose and gain is political (Berends, 2009). In this case, the politics of the USA help by either opposing at the same time cooperating with the policies that are suggested by the government. In relation to this political issue, school choice can be considered as something that was initiated in the moments when racial discrimination was at its peak whereby the school choice was meant to determine the schools of the black and those of whites as determined by the political decisions back then. During those times, the issue of choice was done majorly to segregate students according to their race.

Thus, things such as tuition scholarships and grants were given to the whites so that they can be able to secure better schools as compared to the blacks, which makes us conclude that the matter of school choice began when the political structures supported unlawful or unequal school choice for people despite having the right about freedom of choice to everyone (Springer, Houck & Guthrie, 2008). For example, Milton Friedman was an economic intellectual, and at some point, he was one of the people to acknowledge the fact that the government was subsidizing rather than administering public education. This brought up the sense for the modern school choice framework because, according to Friedman, the quality and efficiency of public-school education had been negatively affected by increased centralization and the control the government has over these schools (Luebke, 2021).

If you carefully study the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, which was ruled more than half a century ago, you will realize that the case was majorly based on the motion against the segregation of students according to their skin color, which was an issue that was affecting people a lot back then. According to the Brown legacy that he left, the school choice is now free and fair. It is not primarily determined by the differences between the individual characteristics of the students, but rather it is based on the policies of the government (Stulberg, 2006). Historically, racial segregation has been a concern, but something that remains up to date is the economic segregation of school choice. Whereby people are being chosen depending on the amount they can afford to pay, especially in the private schools. Brown, in his case, focused on the fact that school choices should not be made according to the race or economic status of people. Narratively, therefore, we can say that the issue of school choice came started being considered serious by people at that point when the Brown case against the Board of Education was determined.

This factor then leads us to the history of the vouchers and tuition scholarships that are given by the government to support the needy students that come from low-income families and have the ability to perform better in education. The reason why Brown is considered to be the person who initiated the issue of school choice is that he fought for an equal educational opportunity for all children despite their racial and economic situation in the family. In this case, Brown claimed that the segregation of students or learners according to their racial and economic situations led the bright black students to end up in the failing public schools whereby and the rich white children are given all the vouchers to cover for their school fees in best schools that have all the necessary resources that enable a student to learn comfortably and achieve academic success.

Therefore, Brown fought for equality by wanting the community and the government to adopt a system of giving these vouchers to the needy and deserving students so that they can also be able to enjoy their participation in the whole K-12 education system. Also, the parents of the black children would benefit from the chance of their children to learn in good schools that only the white children were being taken in before courtesy on the motion that Brown came with (Hanushek, Kain & Rivkin, 2009). Therefore generally, the historical basis of the issue of K-12 choice was before based on racial and economic levels of a person. Still, nowadays, many communities realize the importance of equality, and currently, the issue of school choice and the debate on the children and students that will benefit from the vouchers and tuition scholarships is based not on race but the level of income of the family of the student and also the ability of the child to perform. This is in line to ensure that all the needy and performing students also get the chance to study from good schools’ courtesy of the vouchers given by the government and the tuition scholarships by both private and public entities.

School voucher programs such as the Milwaukee school voucher program are one that has benefitted over 1000 students, whereby this program has given these students the ability to learn from nonsectarian schools in the private sector under the sponsorship of the government. During the unleashing of the bill, state representative Annette Williams promised that the bill would support all those kids that have the brains to perform, but due to low incomes in their family, they do not get a proper education. Also, a lobbyist at the Milwaukee school claimed that the only work that the parents have would be to choose the private school, and then they will pay for it. Normally they work under the act of no child left behind by supporting them to undertake programs like personalized learning & learning pods, town tuition, hybrid homeschooling, microschooling, tax-credit education savings accounts (esas), and education savings accounts (esas)

Relationship of the Issue with Children and the Community

There are different dimensions that indicate the way this issue of school choice and the allocation of the vouchers and tuition scholarships relates with or has affected both the children and communities. The community comprises the parents, children, politicians, teachers, and government officials that are used to determine these issues. Therefore, if we look at how this issue has affected the community, we are looking at how all the above people are affected. If we talk about the children, we refer to the students that are in school or are aspiring to join school too and are the ones that are directly affected by the policies that govern the tuition scholarships, the vouchers, and the school selected by the parents for these children.

The “no child left behind” legislation was meant to bring equality when it comes to educational opportunities in the sense that every child has the same chance to be educated. Children in society are the future, and therefore it is important that their needs are adhered to by society in terms of academics through the provision of the resources that they need to ensure that they become productive later. Therefore, the way the community will support the freedom of school choice and improve the matter on supporting even those children that are vulnerable or come from low-income families, the more they will have covered the needs of their children, which ultimately leads to better academic achievement (Zhang & Cowen, 2009).

Also, you will find that children are more likely to be successful in conditions whereby they are allowed to have free access regardless of the differences in the individual characteristics that they have. This means that depending on the enrolment opportunities that the government is ready to offer to all parents for their children, the number of children that are enrolled in the K-12 educational system will be determined, especially for the public schools. According to research, the population of marginalized students majorly in the U.S. educational system has been catered for by the magnet schools whereby in these schools the parents are given an open choice to ensure that they can enroll their students and even if their low income doesn’t allow payment of school fees for their children. Equal educational opportunities have been promoted by these magnet schools, and therefore there are high chances of educating all the children in the society (Biegel, 1994). These magnet schools have both pros and cons; for the pros, the parents are more involved. Also, it ensures that there is increased racial diversity, which not only increases the motivation of the students, but it also contributes to the high or good test scores from these students. On the other hand, the cons include; sometimes the mismanagement in these schools leads to various issues that affect the students, they are easily affected by small changes, and they can cause achievement gap in schools if not well utilized.

The free access means that the parents can be able to take their children even to the public schools or private too using the public vouchers that they have been given by the government. This shows the clear view of the school choice and that if the children enjoy this free access, it becomes easier for them to be able to achieve academic performance because they too have the free access to resources that make them succeed. This, therefore, shows the way the society, in general, relates to this issue is important because according to research, some people suggest that in other places, the education of the African American K-12 students is heavily affected by discrimination in a sense in communities that are filled with these students, the K-12 public schools in those places are very underdeveloped, and it is of poor quality. These factors lead to a low level of college readiness in these students because they lack the opportunity and the needed resources to succeed in the field of education just like the other white students in the same level of education with the only difference of public schools they are attending (Bridges, Awokoya & Messano, 2012).

The community, therefore, suffers directly from this issue because the educational achievement gap is increased because the educational attainment goals are not reached. Economically these effects are felt because the community will have a hard time regaining the economic state they are in due to a smaller number of professionals in the market due to the inequality that had deep-rooted the issue of school choice and allocation of the vouchers and tuition scholarships to these students based on their backgrounds. The only way to reverse this experience is to ensure that the children get proper education preparation as they travel through this K-12 system so that they can be able to successfully manage to be ready for college studies so that in the future, the community will have increased number of professionals that will help revive their economy (Betts, 2005).

In another perspective, the inclusiveness of the school choices and the educational opportunities determine the satisfaction of all the members of the community. The reason why this is true is that sometimes, it has been recorded both the parents to the marginalized students such as the Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and transgender are together discriminated against in the K-12 schools in the United States (Kosciw & Diaz, 2008). The reason is that people do not want to be associated with them, and thus they make it hard for the students that lie under the LGBT groups to find a decent school just as the rest of the community children.  This issue is not only a matter of the students but also the parents that lie under the LGBT groups find it hard with their students due to both the oral and physical abuse that their children often report after their friends realize that (Gregory & RAY, 2001). This factor indicates that clearly, the matter of free school choice has not been freely and fully accepted by society because sometimes it is the community itself that is against this matter.

Addressing the matters affecting school choice and vouchers or tuition scholarships

As indicated in the last section above, it is indeed true that all the factors that the community is facing in terms of full implementation of free school choice and allocation of the tuition scholarships together with the vouchers of the government are caused by other community members who can be the politicians, the teachers, the parents and even the students themselves. It is, therefore, the mandate of the community to ensure that they have fully implemented actions that will deal with matters that affect the vouchers and tuition scholarships allocation so that they can continue filling the educational achievement gap. To begin with, society is handling this matter is by encouraging students to be hardworking in their classwork and whatever school they have been taken to (Hoxby, 2003). The importance of the efforts of the student is to ensure that they qualify for the vouchers as large in number as possible. It also ensures that many children strive to perform so that they can qualify to graduate from high school and get admitted to tertiary institutions such as universities and colleges.

The school choice and vouchers have their own pros and cons, whereby, to begin with, the school vouchers and school choice have the following pros; they give parents the flexibility of schools so they can transfer their children to the schools of their choice. They also give both the parents and the students the freedom of choice, and the vouchers give the children access to better education which in itself acts as a good way of motivating the student. With the freedom of school choice, the matter of social segregation is discouraged. School vouchers also participate in supporting certain talents for children, and therefore in some way, they help to improve the common public schools. Lastly, the vouchers also help in securing education for the minorities or increasing their safety level when it comes to education through giving them opportunities for better education. On the other hand, the cons of school choice and school vouchers are; schools of choice might lack enough space to enroll all the voucher students, you might also find that the money in the public school system might not be fully enough to support all the students to better schools or the vouchers might not fully cover all the costs. Lastly, you find that private schools sometimes tend to be secretive about their activities, and thus when children are enrolled in those schools, they tend to have a different experience from what they expected. This supports the negative side of school choice where a parent may take a child to schools that will break them and their talents rather than building them, and therefore people should be careful with what they choose for their children.

When the student can succeed in their educational endeavors, it becomes easy for society to implement sound decisions because the new professionals will try to change the problems of inequality for their children so that they will not encounter the issues that they have been facing when they grow. According to research, these professionals help the government to come up with the federal policies that govern the school choice program, which is supposed to govern the charter and public schools by the government so that their structure and order of performance is different from those of traditional public schools. The charter schools historically began in 1922, and they are just public schools that, most of the time, are always under the regulation of the state. The policies used in these schools are supposed to understand the school choices that parents have, and they should also consider the social factors that lag behind these policies and negatively affect these alternatives (Berends, 2021).  Therefore, these federal policies are the second method which the government uses to go against the factors that are affecting the school choice by the parents and also the way K12 students get vouchers and tuition scholarships.

In another perspective, nowadays, better schools are even built in the middle of the residences that were previously considered for the marginalized groups. In an example, nowadays, schools that were previously considered for the rich white Americans are now being built in areas where the African Americans are living, an indication that the community is trying to eradicate the discrimination that used to come alongside residential selection in the previous times. This form of discrimination led to low to zero educational development, especially in the areas where the African Americans were living before. Therefore, with the intervention of the vouchers from the government, the poor African American families also get to enjoy equal opportunity to school choice which is around their area (Howell & Peterson, 2006).

Development of the policies and taking actions to decide to build better school facilities in such places accelerates the speed at which the society can fill the education gap. The reason behind this is that considering the above example of the poor African American children, once the government build a better school in their neighborhood that is public and then offer the vouchers to those students so that they can join those schools, the occupation of the school is more likely to be balanced between the blacks and the whites and also people from the rich and those from the poor. However, to ensure that these students benefit from the vouchers released from the government, the officers in charge should try and develop an efficient voucher system that will be fair and only awarding the deserving students (Laitsch, 2016).

Implications

From both the actions of school choice to allocating students to get the vouchers and the tuition scholarships, there are implications that are caused that affect the whole system of education; taxpaying for the funding source whereby in this section all those inefficient voucher systems, these systems of tax credits can be used instead. In these tax credits, the amount of money that a person owes the institution is reduced by a certain percentage to make it affordable. These implications have been mostly influenced by the political class in the states whereby you find that the democrats and the republicans. On the political views, you find that the democrats are not fewer supporters of the matter on school vouchers than the republicans. They also both support the matter of tax credits and scholarship programs for students.

However, on the matters of school choice, under former President Donald Trump’s, the democrats highly opposed the matter of private school vouchers with the notion that the government money that is supposed to be supporting the public-school systems is being diverted to the private sector. On the other hand, the republicans were opposing the issue of full government control of public education that is attributed to strict national standards and continuous assessments (Griffith, 2020). Under former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos regime, she was an advocate for educational changes, which most supporters of Trump did not like. Unless Congress had ordered her or her department to get involved in an issue, she ensured that she didn’t get in between, but instead, she tackled the culture wars in public schools with the local officials. As indicated in another article, an example was given that she supported the protection of the transgender students whereby she ordered bullying of such students to stop and that her office of civil rights would deal with it when the case comes (Blew, 2021). Generally, despite the challenges and the oppositions that Betsy DeVos faced, she still found it to reform the K12 education system. Most people, including the teachers, opposed her with the feeling that she was not working with them while others were attacking her for belonging in Trump’s government and claiming to be reforming things, but all in all, people such as Howard Huller acknowledged her work and were wondering how Betsy could still stomach working with Trump (Blew, 2021).

In another perspective, some of the states have incorporated the tax credits suggestions with the scholarships for both the needy or the disabled children and those that come from poor backgrounds. This implication generally is trying to get rid of the ineffective voucher systems that mostly ended up in the hands of undeserving students because, unlike the inefficient voucher systems, the tax credits have a better customer choice and competition, which gives parents more freedom of choice of the school they want. Examples of the scholarships that are being offered in the state alongside the tax credits include; ‘‘ASPDP (Arizona’s Scholarship for Pupils with Disabilities Program)’’ ‘‘Utah’s Carson Smith Scholarships for Students with Special Needs (USSSN)’’ and the ‘‘Wahington D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarship Program (WOSP)’’ (Huerta & d’Entremont, 2007).

In another perspective, the evolution of the issue of school choice has affected the travel behavior or, in other words, the walkability and, lastly, the environmental emissions in the community. These implications were realized, especially when a comparison was made between the lifestyle of the students that we’re studying in the city schools and those that we’re studying in the neighborhood schools. During this comparison, it was realized that the issue of school choice had increased the distance of the students that are studying in the city schools because most of the students in those schools’ travel from different parts of the USA to reach their school in the city as compared to those in the neighborhood schools (Wilson, Wilson & Krizek, 2007). In the same perspective, as these children are being transported to their different schools in the city, they are the ones that are most exposed to carbon emissions from the car if compared to those that study from the neighborhood. Therefore, we can conclude that the issue of school choice has implicated the society by increasing the environmental emissions as these students are being transported to the city schools that they study from and also it affects the walkability or the travel behavior of these students in the sense that as they come from their different states, the travel across the USA to reach to their schools. This makes it clear that the issue of school choice has tried to get the residential discrimination whereby people were being given a chance to only study from the schools that were near their residence.

Lastly, another implication is that ever since the beginning of school choice matter over sixty years ago, we learn that the school choice matter has led to deeper interest by the community in matters such as equity so that the high number of children raised in poverty can also get the chance to equal educational opportunities. Despite this, researchers suggest that the educators in the USA have lost their power to the policies by the federals, which from the research make the society think that the management of the K12 system is poor compared to the post-secondary education management (Kirst, 2010).In this case, therefore, this issue has implicated society in the sense that whenever a child performs poorly in the K-12 system, the public blames the school which the student learned from, but if the same student happens to fail in the post-secondary education system, the public views that as the issue of the student because why would a student fail yet the management of school choice and tuition scholarships is in an excellent form? This is the question that the public has in case of this situation.

References

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‘‘Dr. Robert Luebke, (2021). Celebrating School Choice? Thank Milton Friedman, too. https://www.johnlocke.org/update/celebrating-school-choice-thank-milton-friedman-too/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_zGd5UK0IvpcQ1oyC0u0R55kkb3mz_U9YmDdAAZO8XxU-1634443428-0-gqNtZGzNAnujcnBszQi9’’

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Jim Blew, (2021). Betsy DeVos and the Future of Education Reform. https://www.educationnext.org/betsy-devos-future-of-education-reform/