Similarly, a survey by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute found that only 29 percent of parents with children in underperforming schools knew the status of their children's schools, compared to 59 percent of parents whose children attended satisfactorily performing schools. Few Massachusetts parents knew they could transfer their children from underperforming schools to more successful schools. Out of about 100,000 Massachusetts students eligible to transfer out of underperforming schools, fewer than 300 have opted to do so.
In the end, though, the problem is not the parents but the law itself. Under NCLB, Title I federal funding -- money used to provide extra educational services to disadvantaged students in high-poverty schools -- does not follow children to better-performing, non-Title I schools. The result is that better-performing schools have no financial incentive to admit low-performing children.
In practice, children are offered transfers only to other Title I schools. Since most Title I schools are mediocre performers at best, parents have a choice of schools that are only marginally better. Furthermore, the school districts decide which schools parents will be allowed to "choose"; often they offer only one or two alternatives.
Many parents are offered "choice" schools that are just as low-performing as the failing school they are trying to break away from. In the words of school choice advocate Angel Cordero of the New Jersey-based Education Excellence for Everyone, "Camden children are transferred from one bad school to another bad school."
In Chicago students in only 50 of the 179 federally identified failing elementary schools would be allowed to move into higher-performing schools. Parents could choose from a list of 90 schools and could not pick a school more than three miles away from home. In 70 of the 90 schools open to transfers, most pupils failed state tests last year.
In San Bernardino, California, the designated school of choice for high school students was Arroyo Valley High School, which had lower test scores than the schools that were officially designated as failing. How could that happen? Federal standards did not designate Arroyo as underperforming only because until 2003-04 it was not considered "fully functional." (That was the first year it served all four grade levels.) District officials acknowledge that Arroyo isn't necessarily any better than the rest, but it is the only high school option available, since four out of the five high schools are underperforming and considered in "program improvement," an NCLB euphemism for schools that have failed for more than three years in a row.
In October 2003 Connecticut's Hartford Courant described how for months Stacy May fought to transfer her son Taren out of Kinsella Elementary. Hartford school officials confirmed to the newspaper that May was welcome to transfer her son because Kinsella was now labeled a "school in need of improvement." But the district limited May's choices to three other schools, all of which had low scores on the state's standardized test and all of which are now also designated "in need of improvement."
In Palm Beach County, Florida, district officials are projecting that as many as 50,000 students at 64 of the poorest schools could choose another school this fall. But here again, many high-performing schools will be off-limits -- and parents will have only two weeks to decide whether they want their children to move.
Even when parents make direct requests for transfers, districts frequently refuse to grant them. In New York City in 2002-03, more than 278,000 students were eligible for school choice transfers, 6,400 students requested transfers, and the district granted only 1,500 requests. That same year Richmond, Virginia, had just 120 requests for transfer out of 8,000 eligible children, and the district honored only 30.
Transfers are refused because the better schools are at capacity. The federal law ignores the grim reality that many urban districts have few high-performing schools with open slots. As the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan, told Time magazine in September 2003, "It's not like we have a lot of high-performing schools at 50% capacity."
The lack of slots might be less of a problem if Title I dollars could follow children to higher-performing schools. But a better solution is to break up the education dollars to increase capacity, allow more competition, and increase high-quality choices. In June 2004, for example, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who is in the unique position of legally controlling Chicago schools, introduced a plan to open 100 of the city's worst-performing schools to competition. By 2010 Daley intends to recreate more than 10 percent of the city's schools -- one-third as charter schools, one-third as independently operated contract schools, and the remainder as small schools run by the district. Unfortunately, the governance structures of most school districts make it politically difficult to replicate Daley's plan: They would require approval by a school board or state legislation.
When parents are provided with real choice, demand increases dramatically. Since 1999, the privately funded Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF) has provided more than 62,000 low-income children across the nation with scholarships to attend private schools. The first year, more than 1.25 million children applied in 20,000 communities; since it was launched, the average income of participating families has been $22,000. The children's new schools may be parochial, denominational, independent, or a home school. They do not have to belong to any organization or meet any other requirement. The choice is left up to each family.
This year more than 24,000 kids are using CSF tuition assistance to attend a wide variety of private schools. In Los Angeles in 2003, only 229 children managed to transfer to a different public school under No Child Left Behind. Yet the Southern California Children's Scholarship Fund placed 1,600 children and has a waiting list of more than 5,000 names. Los Angeles charter schools such as Fenton Avenue Charter School, Camino Nuevo, and Accelerated Learning also have long waiting lists.
Around the country, the few bona fide school choice and tax credit programs continue to add children every year and often have long waiting lists as well. For example, Florida's Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship program, which provides scholarships to low-income children to attend public or private schools, serves 13,000 children, with another 20,000 waiting to get in.
Parents may not be getting much choice, but they are getting a big tax bill. In a July study, the Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey notes that federal spending at the more than 36 departments and organizations that run major education programs ballooned from about $25 billion in 1965 (adjusted for inflation) to more than $108 billion in 2002. This year funding for the U.S. Department of Education is at an all-time high: $56 billion, an increase of $2.9 billion over last year and $13.8 billion since Bush took office.
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|2.13.10 @ 3:00AM|#
i do know they can transfer i told the special ed regional personal this and she sid no. i told her to read..they can leave that day with a transfer.im out.silverio
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