Working-class parents often express interest in vouchers. But in Arizona, the nation’s school choice capital, these families aren’t using them due to the inaccessibility of private schools and the costs of transportation, meals and uniforms.
we would need to provide additional routes and runs on each route to improve coverage to the point that school buses become moot
And if school buses are moot, then districts are largely moot. Why rely on a district to provide specialized services when you can just let the schools themselves decide what to specialize in to attract students? That works really well for universities, and the main limitation for K-12 schools to operate that way is transit. Moving students to specialized schools within a district is incredibly rare, and I’ve only seen it in one place (where I grew up, which spent a ton on schools and had an advanced placement school). In my current area, the only way you’re getting school choice is if the parents bring the kids to/from school, because the buses only run for students in their boundaries.
I think this type of system would work pretty well in densely populated areas like city centers, though it would break down for smaller towns and whatnot. So we should probably keep the traditional model for rural areas, and migrate to school choice for urban areas.
But yes, transit is absolutely the key. And I think killing bus service would kick-start transit service, since parents would quickly get annoyed if they had to take their kids there every day.
You’re incorrect there. The main limitation for schools k-12 to specialize is funding. To get the equipment and staff necessary takes a lot of money (which is why universities use funding not just from grants that aren’t available to public k-12, like from their research sides that do not exist in public k-12).
The salary is also a huge problem for specialists since they can easily make more with less stress and more validation on the private sector side.
Even if all that got sorted, you would still want to use districting to consolidate some positions in admin, and to make it easier to plan specializations of k-12 schools (so there’s less overlap if it’s not needed and you don’t have a bunch of waste expenses).
The main limitation for schools k-12 to specialize is funding
That may be true w/ the current system where specialized programs are add-ons to the regular programs, but if we’re replacing a current class, maybe funding isn’t as much of an issue. If we use your example, universities specialize and students apply to the school that supports their desired specialty. The university I went to had no medical program but had an awesome law program, whereas the school an hour away had the opposite (awesome medical, no law), so if I wanted to go into law or medical, I would choose the school appropriately.
But when I say “specialize,” I generally don’t mean things that require more equipment, like IT or trades, I mean teaching style. For primary education, here are some examples:
democratic education - kids choose what to learn, within certain guard-rails
independent learning - kids largely teach themselves, so similar to home-schooling, but with a professional teacher available
traditional learning - teacher-guided education in a traditional classroom setting
None of these really change equipment requirements, but they do require a different type of curriculum and teacher development.
Secondary education could also change, but this gets a lot more into equipment. I’m thinking some schools could stop general education at grade 10, with the last two years preparing kids for the workforce in specific areas (e.g. trades, IT, etc). They’d still have some traditional classroom instruction, but a significant portion of the day (half?) would be dedicated to whatever their focus is. They would invite local businesses to fund the more expensive programs in return for access to the students as a form of recruitment. Other schools would do the traditional college track and focus more on writing essays, reading literature, etc. All of the tracks would hit base learning standards, I just think kids can learn a lot more effectively if they attend a school that matches their ideal learning style.
I think we’re wasting a lot of kids’ potential by forcing everyone through traditional education. This isn’t the fault of teachers either, and I think most teachers agree that many of their students would do better in another environment, but that other environment doesn’t exist. I think the school bus system is holding us back, and if we had better mobility between schools, we could specialize schools to get better outcomes for all.
And if school buses are moot, then districts are largely moot. Why rely on a district to provide specialized services when you can just let the schools themselves decide what to specialize in to attract students? That works really well for universities, and the main limitation for K-12 schools to operate that way is transit. Moving students to specialized schools within a district is incredibly rare, and I’ve only seen it in one place (where I grew up, which spent a ton on schools and had an advanced placement school). In my current area, the only way you’re getting school choice is if the parents bring the kids to/from school, because the buses only run for students in their boundaries.
I think this type of system would work pretty well in densely populated areas like city centers, though it would break down for smaller towns and whatnot. So we should probably keep the traditional model for rural areas, and migrate to school choice for urban areas.
But yes, transit is absolutely the key. And I think killing bus service would kick-start transit service, since parents would quickly get annoyed if they had to take their kids there every day.
You’re incorrect there. The main limitation for schools k-12 to specialize is funding. To get the equipment and staff necessary takes a lot of money (which is why universities use funding not just from grants that aren’t available to public k-12, like from their research sides that do not exist in public k-12). The salary is also a huge problem for specialists since they can easily make more with less stress and more validation on the private sector side.
Even if all that got sorted, you would still want to use districting to consolidate some positions in admin, and to make it easier to plan specializations of k-12 schools (so there’s less overlap if it’s not needed and you don’t have a bunch of waste expenses).
That may be true w/ the current system where specialized programs are add-ons to the regular programs, but if we’re replacing a current class, maybe funding isn’t as much of an issue. If we use your example, universities specialize and students apply to the school that supports their desired specialty. The university I went to had no medical program but had an awesome law program, whereas the school an hour away had the opposite (awesome medical, no law), so if I wanted to go into law or medical, I would choose the school appropriately.
But when I say “specialize,” I generally don’t mean things that require more equipment, like IT or trades, I mean teaching style. For primary education, here are some examples:
None of these really change equipment requirements, but they do require a different type of curriculum and teacher development.
Secondary education could also change, but this gets a lot more into equipment. I’m thinking some schools could stop general education at grade 10, with the last two years preparing kids for the workforce in specific areas (e.g. trades, IT, etc). They’d still have some traditional classroom instruction, but a significant portion of the day (half?) would be dedicated to whatever their focus is. They would invite local businesses to fund the more expensive programs in return for access to the students as a form of recruitment. Other schools would do the traditional college track and focus more on writing essays, reading literature, etc. All of the tracks would hit base learning standards, I just think kids can learn a lot more effectively if they attend a school that matches their ideal learning style.
I think we’re wasting a lot of kids’ potential by forcing everyone through traditional education. This isn’t the fault of teachers either, and I think most teachers agree that many of their students would do better in another environment, but that other environment doesn’t exist. I think the school bus system is holding us back, and if we had better mobility between schools, we could specialize schools to get better outcomes for all.