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Choice
By choice we mean that parental decisions rather than bureaucratic regulation should drive the education enterprise. Open competition among ideas and methods, with people free to abandon weak schools for stronger ones, is the surest way to make major progress.
-Our Schools and Our Future
Koret Task Force on K-12 Education
Only for worst performing schools
If a school fails to improve its overall test scores within a certain time period, then the students should have the option to continue in the failing school or attend a nearby better performing public school. In other words, parents should have the choice to remove their children from the failing school and enroll them in another better performing public school.
Only for other public schools
Students should be allowed to attend any public school of their choice at the state’s expense. Students should not be confined to schools within their current school district. Because schools within the same district regularly provide a similar quality of education, parents should not be limited in their options, but instead should be able to select any public school for their children. In contrast to voucher programs, this proposed choice program will not include private schools.
State money follows the student
Once the student chooses to attend a better performing school, the state will transfer the money allocated for that public school student from the failing school to the better performing public school.
Departed district pays transportation costs
Once the student chooses to attend a better performing school, the school district with the failing school will be required to pay the transportation costs necessary for sending the child to the better performing school.
State pays for temporary classrooms
If the better performing school does not have enough adequate classroom space to accommodate the incoming students, the state should be required to pay for any temporary classroom space. A desk in a temporary classroom in a better performing school is better than a desk in a state-of-the-art facility in a failing school.
Source: Arkansas Department of Education |
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