Lisa Blais: Rhode Island School Choice A Travesty
Thursday, August 08, 2013
Whatever happened to Darryl? He crosses my mind sometimes–a boy who I knew many years ago when I was an undergraduate at RIC. I was an education liaison for him and too many other teenage boys fresh out of the former RI Training School who were thrown into RI’s group home system. Nobody really cared about Darryl or cared about providing any educational opportunities for him so that he might rise above the crisis that was his life. The system failed him and no one really deeply cared.
Does anyone really care about someone else’s kids’ education or their likelihood to achieve? Do you?
The RI Foundation recently rolled out a new motto that reminds Rhode Islanders that we have greatness in our own backyard. Of course we do! But, let’s consider the words “in our own backyard” in the context of educating every kid in RI. The mentality of “in our own backyard” may be the root cause of our struggle to provide the best educational opportunities for someone else’s kid as long as our own is taken care of or as long as the traditional system of public education is protected regardless of its performance for the sake of its mission and the adults who are participants in that system or who are stakeholders as a result of that system.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTFor some, but not for others
I find it ironic that in our current environment so many people are concerned with providing an even playing field for our kids when it comes to blurring the lines of winners and losers in sports activities–everyone gets an award–or by paying heightened attention to specific words that are used on standardized tests (NY’s DoE has a routine list of words suggested for obliteration. Examples are “birthday”, “dinosaur”, Christmas, Yom Kippur) or by choosing what classic literary works will be banned in the classroom for fear of offending anyone or causing a student to feel badly. We do so much to shield our kids from the reality of real world expectations–think higher education, work, and positive inter-personal relationships in a diverse world. Yet, we insist that some of our kids must remain in traditional public schools that are underperforming or failing. No even playing field there. This is a clear example of the blatant imbalance between our messaging and our practices that must be corrected if we are ever to do right by generations of kids.
The root of the problem
There are great schools in RI’s own backyard. There are also schools that are letting our kids down. To deny that underperforming or failing schools exist is to deny reality. To be clear, this is not meant to diminish the hard and well-intentioned work that takes place in some of these poorly-performing schools. The problems are typically much bigger than any one of the individuals in those schools–it’s the system that we have created with the constant revenue flow of taxpayers’ money that makes it easy for too many people to argue against upsetting the apple cart in order to maintain poorly performing traditional public schools.
There is no one perfect system of education. There are many great traditional public schools across RI as well as independent, faith-based, public charters and private schools that are serving our kids very well. Let’s not forget the brave and highly energetic, intellectually curious home-school community. In RI, we deny too many parents and their kids the opportunity to choose among those school settings that at the very least will be better for them than the failing or under-performing setting that they may find themselves trapped in–or, at the most will provide them with the opportunity to thrive in a culture of achievement that will propel them to reach their own greatness.
No excuses
Why do we deny our kids school choice? While there are a myriad of answers to this one question, I offer one simple answer: our established traditional public school system and its stakeholders naturally protect its taxpayers’ revenue flow to support, in some cases, bloated budgets that do not reflect the value of the cost as measured by our kids’ academic experiences and achievement levels. It’s called self-preservation. Understandable, but that mindset does nothing for our kids who by virtue of their zip code may find themselves in a lousy school setting. It does nothing for our kids who for socio-economic reasons don’t have various sustainable oppotunities (and I don’t mean by the chance of a lottery) for school choice.
If Darryl or Latisha or Jonathan or Mason, Ashley and Anna were looking you in the eye and asking for a better school, could you say “no” without it feeling like your heart was being ripped out of your chest? For anyone who cares deeply for them and their future, it is a cold reality that our way of doing things has little to do with the heart. All of the wonderful words that we speak and hear in the world of education ring hollow as long as the answer to their request to attend another school is “no”. So, I ask who among us could look back at them and explain that they will not be allowed to choose another school in their own district or another district, or the wonderful charter, faith-based or private school they know about because the money is spent on too many failing schools.
We must and should provide every child in RI with a great school and school choice programs offer a variety of ways to do just that.
Google school choice programs. There is much to learn about the various ways and means to provide sustainable school choice in RI. Keep an open mind–better yet picture yourself looking into those kids’ eyes and saying “no” and then go learn as much as you can about various ways to provide school choice in RI. You just might find yourself wanting to say “yes” to those very same kids!
Lisa Blais is an education reformer, HR specialist, and taxpayer advocate with OSTPA.
Related Articles
- Lisa Blais: RI Needs to Oppose Binding Arbitration Bill
- Lisa Blais: RI’s Budget—State Pension, Tolls + The Big Win
- Lisa Blais: RI’s Economic Assault On Average Taxpayers
- Lisa Blais: Rhode Island School Choice A Travesty
- Lisa Blais: Awakening The Sleeping Giant in Coventry & Elsewhere
- Lisa Blais: The Governor’s Executive Order and Your Wallet
- Lisa Blais: Education Is Rhode Island’s Political Football
- Lisa Blais: The Struggle To Retain Seniority For Teachers
- Lisa Blais: No Public-Private Deals For Superman Building
- Lisa Blais: Providence Goes After Water, Homeowners To Fix Budget
