Darcy Richie: School choice plans leave too many children behind

It's been said that the promise of a better educational system rode in on a Trojan horse. Its name: the No Child Left Behind Act, established by the Bush administration. On the outside, we see elements of accountability, school choice and a better public school system. We wheel it into our school systems and praise its promises. However, lurking inside is the truth that the No Child Left Behind Act directs our country away from the Department of Education and support of our public schools and toward privatization.

Under the plan, parents are encouraged to abandon their public schools if the school does not meet standards established by the state. For most, however, location, financial situation and/or lack of adequate choices keeps running away from being a viable option.

Hoping that the schools that students are left in begin to improve? Schools can receive additional funding if they improve in 12 years -- enormously less time than it takes for a school, as an institution, to make lasting progressive strides. Schools are encouraged to expel, fail or deny support to students they feel might lower the overall average. Therefore, not only are we leaving behind the students who might need more focused support, but we are also eliminating the children suffering the most. What happened to the educational system that attempted to educate those who struggle and teach those who need help? Somewhere along the line, we allowed this program to distract us from any overarching educational goal.

Also, states are given money in accordance with the percentage of students that meet state standards. This seems reasonable until you consider that there is more incentive for states to help only high-producing schools, leaving students in most other schools not only without state support, but with policy makers crossing their fingers and hoping for failure.

Words like "choice" make No Chid Left Behind sound appealing because we associate them with power. But neither power nor choice exists for most families.

Most families don't have the private funds to match the miniscule amounts offered to them by vouchers. Supporters of school choice programs argue that spending money on programs such as vouchers would prove a more cost-effective route. They think that if we gave the 16 million poor and lower-middle-class children in our country a $1,500 voucher, or other type of school choice, the bill would amount to only $24 billion.

To put that amount in perspective, it is 25 percent less than the state of California alone spends and less than 8 percent of the $316 billion spent on education today by all levels of government nationwide. Bravo! Our educational funding is displaced and inefficient. However, the one major flaw is that $1,500 wouldn't help any parent who is struggling to supply their children with clothes, food, books and shelter. If the solution to our problem was simply to give every child $1,500, we wouldn't be in an educational crisis in the first place.

Our fear that with school choice programs the best of the best will be shaved off the top has been confirmed. As the identified students apply to better schools and the informed parents move their children to better-producing schools or better-funded schools -- if they exist -- almost a generation of students are left behind without support and funding to wait for the school to ultimately be labeled unproductive after 12 years.

Unfortunately, the small amount of money dished out to the consumers in school choice is not even the scariest part. The saddest and most detrimental part of No Child Left Behind is its attempt to use school choice as a way of redirecting our country's support away from public schools and the Department of Education, making us question whether a public school system really works.

This reality is hidden under the myth that school choice does not drain public school budgets. In Milwaukee, school spending has grown by $364 million, and a recent Milwaukee fiscal analysis estimates that if school choice were eliminated, Milwaukee public schools could incur $70 million of added operating expenses and might have to borrow up to $70 million for facilities. Nobody mentions that the multimillion-dollar cut would be necessary because a cut to school choice would mean that money would be needed to replenish resources taken from the public school system. A public school system does work. The answer: money, support and resources.

Overall, the No Child Left Behind program fails on many levels. More significantly, the program is not funded in any manner to ensure its success. Ultimately, the program was not established to succeed in bettering our public schools but to prove that public schools do not work in educating.

The reality is, we said "bring us your weary" and we will educate them. We need money, resources and legislative support. Further still, we can involve parents in the educational process rather than simply involving them in the removal and relocation of their children.

Darcy Richie is a senior urban studies major from Birmingham, Mich. Strange Fruit appears on Wednesdays.

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