School Choice Advantage : Positive Results & Cheaper

'It's the market place, stupid!' School choice is here to stay even though the fight to keep it viable is moving ahead, the pace is too slow. What's needed is more common sense and less politics if we are to improve the educational system in this country.

What is the problem with accepting an educational system in the market place that has shown to have a positive impact on students, and all the while the competition from these Choice schools will help improve the existing public school system. It's called compete or die. It works every time it's tried.

The real problem here is the unions won't give up the power and the money that they have with controlling the teachers, and the progressive socialist democrats won't get the votes promised by the unions.

Another Reason for School Choice
Source: Jeff Spalding, "Public Schools Should Rise Above [Which] Mark?" Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, April 15, 2014

April 25, 2014

A new film on K-12 public education highlights why school choice is important, says Jeff Spalding, director of fiscal policy and analysis at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

"Rise Above the Mark," a film produced by the West Lafayette Community School Corporation in Indiana -- whose public schools are considered some of the best in the state -- argues against public school critics and contends that accountability requirement changes have taken the joy out of teaching and interfered with teachers' ability to help students in need.

• Spalding, Controller for the City of Indianapolis during the recession, agrees that school officials faced financial challenges, but he points out that public school spending in the last half of the 20th century outpaced economic growth as well as most state and local government spending during that time.
• The recession was really the first time that schools were forced to deal with funding constraints.

The film blames politicians for misallocating resources. But that is an argument in favor of school choice. Politicians, Spalding says, cannot allocate resources effectively. Only by introducing more consumer choice into the marketplace will funding be better allocated -- by performance and need, not by a partisan political process.