People passing by an inner-city school may think it's filled with young people who can't or won't learn, but if they go inside they'll find two groups of kids.
The majority are youngsters who would like to learn. They aren't problem kids, but they sure have a problem. If they raise their hands to answer a question or cooperate with the teacher or do their homework and bring it in, they're likely to be ostracized or even beaten up by members of the second group, the kids who are hostile to learning.
Frequently, kids in this second group don't even come to school. When they do show up, they might spend the day sleeping in the back of the class; but when they choose, they can make life hell for teachers and other kids in their classes. And their shouting, fighting and pranks take so much of a teacher's time and attention that little work gets done.
The more of these anti-learning kids are in a classroom or school, the more likely they are to make the school a place where discipline is the main concern. But the opposite is true too, and if there are enough kids who want to learn, they will be able to set the tone. The trouble is, existing laws and procedures make it almost impossible to remove the troublemakers from a school. One result is that people are pressing to rescue kids who want to learn from public schools where learning has become secondary to keeping order. They say, "Let these kids go to private schools, and let the school district that has failed them pay."
Given the situation, this makes sense. But a voucher plan that puts the learning kids into private schools will turn public schools into custodial institutions for the disturbed and disruptive places that are little better than prisons. And while such a plan will save one group of kids, it abandons the other group. Why not try for something that could save both?
Why shouldn't we leave the public school kids who are learning right where they are and send the others to private schools? There's little point in moving a kid who is already successful; and the youngsters who are motivated, but fearful in the current atmosphere, will be likely to start working when the atmosphere changes. There's even less point in letting the kids who have given up on school -- and whose schools have probably given up on them -- stay where they are.
But what if we gave these kids who are doing so badly a second chance? What if they went to new schools, places that they didn't associate with failing---and getting away with murder? Places where they would be surrounded by kids who were working and learning. Of course lots of them would be no better off than they are in their current public schools, but according to what we hear about private school successes, a large number of them would improve enormously and leave high school with the skills they need to get real jobs or enter college.
A good idea? I think so. And it's not even a new one. Barbara Lerner, a psychologist and lawyer, proposed it over ten years ago in a book called Minimum Competence, Maximum Choice (New York: Irvington, 1980). Lerner's scheme involved giving public schools three years to succeed with a kid and, if they failed, allowing the kids to go to private school at public expense for three more years. As she, said, it would help the kids who needed help most: "All failing children stand to benefit, but because poor children and black children fail more often than children from other groups, they would benefit more than others in direct proportional terms." And the scheme would benefit neighborhood schools as well as the kids by "giving successful youngsters who want to remain a fighting chance to maintain and build on their successes, forming positive peer cultures that encourage other educationally successful youngsters to stay and educationally marginal ones to bring their performance up to standard."
But, despite all the things going for this proposal, nobody jumped on the Lerner bandwagon, and the reason is pretty obvious. Supporters of private-school choice talk about how much private schools can do for poor and minority kids. But private schools are not interested in taking poor and minority -- or even white -- students who are in big trouble in their current schools, the ones who really need a second-chance. They prefer kids who are doing well in school. They insist on the right to choose and the right to expel kids they can't deal with. And really you can't blame them. Private schools are just that; they are not public institutions, and they do not have a responsibility to all students; only to the ones they choose.
The word choice sounds great, but there won't be any choice for kids who are not accepted by private schools---and they are the kids in greatest need. How can we make sure they get into school under a choice plan? Simple. Instead of letting private schools choose, let the public schools choose students who are most in need of help---the students who are failing in attendance, discipline and academic achievement. Is there any doubt that public schools would pick the right students? And is there any doubt about the private schools' response to a system of choice in which they didn't get to do the choosing?