You may have seen signs popping up roadside about “open enrollment” or “school choice.” You may even be seeing people with clipboards collecting signatures.
It may even sound good to you – after all, who is against having choices? The problem is school choice proponents are really saying “don’t choose public education.”
School choice refers to policies that are supposed to make it easier for families to choose the school that best suits their child and to allow families access to better quality school districts. In reality, the policies end up diverting taxpayer money to private institutions and wreaking havoc on public school budgets.
Families using school choice often prefer private education and there are no restrictions on which schools they choose. Private schools face much less regulation than public schools, and their employees are rarely unionized. They are free to offer lower pay, fewer benefits and worse working conditions for their staff without the protections of a union-negotiated contract.
Even if families simply want to move their children to another public school or district, the shifting of enrollment numbers and money lead to chaos and budget and staff cuts.
Funding is supposed to follow the student. It sounds simple on the surface, but it’s easy to underestimate the complexity that unrestricted student mobility adds to school district budget calculations. Often the funding does not follow the student in the end, which leaves the new school or district having to shoulder the cost for that student’s education.
One extra student might not sound that bad, but imagine what happens when the number of individual students adds up. One district may be fortunate to have more money for fewer students, but others will find themselves with whole classrooms of kids they didn’t account for when budgeting for their school year. And they can’t be sure those students will be enrolled the following year.
In states with active school choice policies, school districts will choose to underbudget because their enrollment numbers become unpredictable. Underbudgeting means cutting staff and asking the remaining employees to carry heavier workloads and larger class sizes if enrollment is higher than expected – which can easily happen in schools considered “desirable” by parents using school choice.
There are two potential troubling initiatives related to public school funding this year: one to allow open enrollment between school districts and one to move school funds out of public education. The two combined represent a strong push for school choice policies here in Oregon – policies that will lead directly to staff cuts if they are not prevented.
If you are asked to sign an initiative petition related to open enrollment or school choice, you are well within your rights to decline to sign.