By Arnold Hillman, special to Statehouse Report | In life, we tend to make choices that are in our best interests. Most times these choices turn out to be positive. I am not talking about taking drugs, alcohol or smoking. Take a look at your own life and you will see that you have made some pretty good decisions.
Recently, there have been some forced choices relating to education. The choicemasters want to force you to make choices about the schooling that your children are getting in local school districts. The choices that they are giving you is to send your children to a private or parochial school and have your tuition paid by the state.
Most of the private schools have tuition rates that are much larger than the dollars that the state would provide. The parochial schools are a different story. The is no real information about what tuition would be if the “vouchers” were in effect. In fact, these schools do not have to accept your child. [Editor’s Note: Gov. Henry McMaster signed a voucher bill into law this week.]
Let us say that funding is not the only fly in the ointment. Distance is also a problem. How will students, who are leaving their local schools to go to a private or parochial school, get there? Will some business start up to transport the children?
Even more interesting is a new proposal to allow students to go to any public school in your state. There are so many questions about this proposal. The one thing that strikes me as a former coach and athletic director is that now we will be able to poach players from another school district. Wouldn’t that be great?
What about other extra-curricular activities? How about the band director who needs a trombone player. He/she knows one of those kinds of students in a neighboring school district. How about a Quiz Bowl or spelling bee champion? What about poaching students with very high
SAT/ACT scores to enhance your school’s standing across the state. I am sure you could find even more “things” that could be borrowed from another school district.
The students could now offer themselves to school districts that might house them at the home of a booster or even a coach. I wonder how the state athletic associations or even all of the other state associations, would handle that. It certainly would inspire some really interesting business adventures.
So what does this all mean for you as a parent or citizen or just plain folks? What does choice really mean? Can we also have choices in other areas of life? How about in politics? What happens if I don’t like what my state senator or my local representative is doing? Would I then be able to vote for another person in another district. Isn’t this a choice?
Why is it that we are listening to the definitions of choice in education and not in other parts of state government? In a recent school board election snafu, a person ran in one district and actually lived in another district. He really did not know he lived in the wrong district. So what! It was his choice to run in the other district. As foolish as that seems, isn’t that his choice?
There are many choices that we make in life that may not seem OK to others, but are fine with you. So, the above suggestions make as much sense to me, as to allowing any student to go to any school district in the state. By the way, who is going to pay for transportation? This would certainly be a Black Swan event.
NOTE: A black swan event is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight
Dr. Arnold Hillman of Bluffton is a founder of the S.C. Organization of Rural Schools. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
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