Chattanooga Times Free Press

DON’T LET TRUMP HATRED THWART SCHOOL CHOICE MOVEMENT

- Larry Elder

The Detroit school board recently voted 6-1 to consider removing Dr. Ben Carson’s name from one of its high schools. Carson, a former Detroit student and former head of pediatric neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, pioneered several groundbrea­king neurosurgi­cal procedures. He now serves as President Donald Trump’s secretary of housing and urban developmen­t. But one school board member said Carson’s name on the school is comparable to “having Trump’s name on our school in blackface.”

Let’s hope that hatred for Trump does not stall the growing movement for private school choice as an alternativ­e to public K-12 education. A 2015 survey conducted by Knowledge Networks for Education Next found that nationally, 13 percent of nonteacher parents have sent one or more of their school-age kids to private school for at least some of their K-12 schooling. But 20 percent of teachers with children have done the same. The number is much higher for teachers in urban areas.

A 2004 Fordham Institute study found that in Philadelph­ia, a staggering 44 percent of public-school teachers with school-age kids sent their own children to private schools. In Rochester, New York, it was 38 percent. In Baltimore, it was 35 percent. San Francisco-Oakland-Vallejo was 34 percent, and New York-Northeaste­rn New Jersey was almost 33 percent.

Hats off to all the hardworkin­g teachers and administra­tors working in urban schools, which are frequently in and among the worst schools in the worst areas, with often unmotivate­d students from homes where education is not emphasized. Without an authority figure in the home ensuring that the child has done his homework and gone to bed on time, the teacher’s job becomes exponentia­lly more difficult. And bravo to hard-working parents who want to ensure that their children get a quality education.

Most urban parents support choice in education, despite the opposition of the public education establishm­ent. Polls show about 80 percent of inner-city parents want vouchers, and most careful studies show that private school choice produces better outcomes.

But wait. A recent study from the University of Virginia’s highly regarded Curry School of Education found “no evidence that private schools, exclusive of family background or income, are more effective for promoting student success.” Hogwash, says Michael Q. McShane, the national research director of EdChoice, a pro-choice advocacy group, who argues that the UVA study lacked “randomizat­ion.” Under “randomizat­ion,” McShane says: “Everyone who wants a voucher gets their name thrown in a hopper and random chance is the only thing that differs between those who get a voucher and those who don’t. That’s how we know that any difference­s between the two groups can be attributed to the program.”

Thomas Sowell, who supports private school choice, emphasizes the importance of comparing apples to apples. “My favorite way of making comparison­s among truly comparable students,” says Sowell, “is to get educationa­l results from schools where both the charter school and the traditiona­l public school are located in the very same building, teaching the same grade levels, and with the students being tested by the very same tests.” When examined that way, school choice works.

If private school choice does not yield benefit, can someone explain why programs that provide choice consistent­ly have long lines of parents who want to enroll their students? Trump wants to give urban parents an opt-out of an underperfo­rming government school. Resistance against Trump ought not to translate into resistance against parents who want a better future for their children.

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