School Choice Crucible: A Case Study of Boulder Valley

Abstract

Given the effort and expense it would take to get school choice right - free transportation and concerted efforts to disseminate accessible information are minimum requirements - we would do well to abandon it as a failed school reform idea, the authors conclude. But it is probably too late to stop the bus. SCHOOL CHOICE is a controversial public education reform - but not as controversial as it should be. Support for choice remains strong in the face of mounting evidence that long-standing controversies are being decided in favor of the critics of choice. Our study of the choice program in the Boulder Valley School District adds to the growing body of research documenting serious flaws in the theory, procedures, and outcomes of school choice. Advocates of school choice contend that competition gives parents a voice and the power to vote with their feet. Schools that consistently perform poorly will lose clients and be forced to of business, resulting in overall improvement in both achievement and parental satisfaction. Advocates of choice also contend that school choice can better accommodate a diversity of student interests and needs than the one-size-fits-all approach they ascribe to traditional public schools. Finally, they contend that school choice can reduce inequities. School choice is really nothing new, according to them, for parents have long chosen schools by choosing their place of residence. A choice policy that removes attendance boundaries permits students to attend schools independent of the price of houses in the neighborhoods in which they live and of their parents' power to influence school officials. It thus provides all parents with choice and so promises to promote diversity in schools. Critics respond that competition for destroys cooperation among teachers, schools, and communities and that it provides no answer to the question of what to do with the students who are being harmed while schools are declining, before they go out of business. Instead of increasing achievement overall, competition only stratifies school achievement, as certain schools use exclusive admissions procedures or tout the high test scores of their students in order to skim the most able students. Regarding student interests and needs, critics contend that genuinely public schools must be to all students. Choice schools exclude difficult-to-teach students and force other public schools to carry an unfair burden. Finally, critics argue that school choice is much more likely to exacerbate inequity than to mitigate it. Without free transportation and adequate information, which public choice plans typically fail to provide, many parents will be unable to exercise choice. Schools will also be subjected to unfair comparisons, for they will be judged in terms of the same criteria, especially test scores, with no regard for the kinds of students they enroll or the resources they can garner. These claims and counterclaims - about competition, meeting student needs, and equity - provided the general framework that we brought to bear on our study of the Boulder Valley School District's open enrollment system. We revisit them below in some detail. Setting for the Study Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) is centered in Boulder, Colorado. Boulder has a population of 96,000. It is home to the main campus of the University of Colorado and is ringed by high-tech corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Ball Aerospace, and Storage Tek. median household income in Boulder is $51,000, and the city's residents are highly educated. Nearly 30% of the adult population holds graduate or professional degrees. Boulder is noted for its left-leaning politics in an otherwise conservative state, so much so that it has been nicknamed The People's Republic. Boulder Valley School District reaches well beyond the confines of the city of Boulder. In the western reaches of the district are the sparsely populated foothills of the Rocky Mountains. …