Think tank speaker emphasizes school choice

BY ERIN MILLER | WEST HAWAII TODAY

Hawaii is in a unique situation when it comes to looking for educational reforms, a Heritage Foundation speaker told members of the Kona Tea Party Thursday at Boston Basil’s.

The state’s top-down Department of Education can be “very hampering to parents” who want to change how schools here operate, Heritage Foundation Domestic Policy Studies Director Jennifer Marshall said.

For parents who want more choices for student education, whether those options are charter schools, vouchers to send their children to private schools, online classes or community college courses, Marshall offered several ways to seek out those choices.

“Study success where it’s been had,” she said.

To that end, she presented information about the District of Columbia Public Schools and the Schools of Choice Act, which starting in 2004 allowed parents in the district to apply for scholarships to send their children to private schools. D.C.’s schools have become a case study for successful school choice programs, she said, noting the district’s high school graduation rate prior to the program was about 50 percent. Students in the choice program have a 91 percent graduation rate, and students whose parents were unable to get them a voucher, but who wanted to be part of the program, have a 70 percent graduation rate.

Only 1,600 students are currently enrolled in the program, Marshall added, acknowledging that is a small percentage of the district’s total enrollment. But enrollment in charter schools has also increased, with 40 percent of D.C.’s students now attending such a program.

Marshall offered additional advice, particularly as some of the 20 or so meeting attendees queried her on how they could really push for school choice options.

“Look for allies in unlikely places,” Marshall said. “Many people are concerned about education.”

In D.C., those allies included the Washington Post and congressional representatives from both political parties advocating for changes to the D.C. school system.

What the Heritage Foundation envisions for students across the country is less federal intervention, coupled with an ala carte approach, allowing parents to craft an educational program for the children, she said. One hurdle in such a program would be transportation, particularly for families without easy access to a car to take children from one program component to another.

“With the menu approach, that’s not to say there wouldn’t be a default option,” Marshall said. “There’s a public school system in that (menu concept).”

She also would like to see schools and programs helping parents navigate such a system, helping parents select the best options for their children, as well as neutral advisers providing assistance as well, Marshall said.

One meeting attendee talked about his granddaughter, a charter school student here, and how attending the charter school prevented her from exposure to drugs and sex at a public high school.

“That is the kind of personal example of what is at stake,” Marshall said, adding people interested in getting school choice options for Hawaii need to make other state residents aware of those kinds of stories. “Success is possible.”

emiller@westhawaiitoday.com