How "Choice" Is No Choice at All

In a national school system that has worsened -- not improved -- under NCLB, there are a few schools where good teaching and learning practices are in place. The Portland public schools system -- like many others across the country -- holds these schools out to parents through a "choice" process that involves a lottery.

Most parents who know about these schools and can afford to transport their kids there want what these schools offer. They still have an extended recess. They still have art and music and see them as intrinsic to healthy childhood development, not as frivolous extras that can come or go depending on the budget or the latest test data.

This past spring, parents in Portland flocked to these kinds of schools. At Emerson Charter School, there were over 200 applications for 12 spots in the K-1 classroom. Similar numbers were seen at Trillium, Opal, and Portland Village School.

But the approaches these schools take are usually not offered to us at our neighborhood schools. They certainly aren't offered at my neighborhood school -- a school that voluntarily subjects children to the DIBELS test and limits 5 and 6-year-old Kindergarten children to 20 minutes of recess and a sprinkling of PE, art, and music here and there.

So here's what the "choice" for parents looks like: (1) we can roll the dice and hope that we get lucky and get in to one of these schools, or (2) we can enroll our children in schools that follow test-centric, developmentally inappropriate curricula. The former is a desired outcome. The latter comes with a great deal of anxiety, trepidation, and bitterness.

Of course, we can choose to withdraw our children from the school system and homeschool them. But this is not really a choice, given the options. It's really a matter of necessity. With some degree of sadness and a great deal of disappointment, my wife and I decided to homeschool our daughter this year. We believe we had no other choice. Homeschooling will be fun and rewarding, and we're looking forward to it. But it often feels like we're making lemonade from lemons.

So does making the "choice" schools available to all parents make the other schools better? Absolutely not. Do all parents and children benefit from the "choice" schools? Absolutely not. Rather, other parents and their kids become your competition as you scramble and beg for the few crumbs thrown out. It's a sickening and heart-breaking process. It is morally and ethically stinky. You know that if you are lucky and get in, your kid is going to make it. You know that other kids will not get in. You are aware of this. And still you participate in the "choice" process.

I never liked "choice" because it's no choice at all. What "choice" does is effectively defang the opposition, as the few most vocal opponents of the status quo branch off and start their own charters and then attract others. The kids that make it into these schools are lucky, indeed. But the rest are not so lucky and must play the hand they've been dealt. My wife and I are in a postion where homeschooling is possible -- this year. But who knows about next year? And most parents are not in a position to be able to homeschool. They are stuck with the test-centric schools and must choose between them and nothing at all.

Some choice . . .