A public schools paradox

I should be writing a paper, but I'm hopping onto the blog for the first time in four months. The impetus? A desperately perplexing civic issue that I needed to talk about in public, in the hopes of finding some new ways to think about it.

I've been wondering for many months now: what happens to public school systems when parents who have the means and/or care to do so exit in order to give their children a better education? As more and more of my friends who live in urban areas start having kids and making these decisions, this question has really been weighing on my mind. In the past few months, I've heard many different friends and acquaintances mention how and why they chose not to send their child to the public school where they were residing at the time. The methods vary - whether they put their child in a private school, a charter school, or changed school districts by moving. The nature of the school systems also vary - some are uniformly dangerous and of poor quality, some have quality that varies widely depending on the school your child gets placed in, and others are just considered less than the best.

This might not be such a remarkable set of stories; but the part that I'm struggling with is that all of these people are also individuals who care about social and economic justice, and who care about preserving a strong public school system. Looking at the research about education and school systems, the key factors that make a difference in a good education and a good school environment are the socioeconomic status of the families attending a school, and the level of involvement of the parents of a school's students in their education. And so, a mismatch occurs between the values of socially-minded individuals and the choices that they make about their families, when inequity of education for others is a highly likely result of those choices.

It's a hard decision to argue against, when you balance the direct consequences for your child with the indirect consequences for people to whom you don't have any specific responsibility - or even any concrete connection. It's also a really hard thing to talk about as a question in our public life together, because everybody gets really defensive and crazy. People who've decided to take their children out of a low-performing school or system get kind of ticked off when you ask about it, and tend to vehemently defend why they couldn't make their child a social experiment for the sake of abstract justice. People who've kept their children in public schools tend to argue that they schools are just fine, thank you, and, by the way, people who took their kids out don't care about schools and are kind of elitist. And of course, I have to defend my right to even be a part of the conversation, because I don't have kids and so I can't really have anything worthwhile to say unless I've been in the situation myself, and also, it's a private decision and none of my damn business.

But I feel like that standoff is just destined to continue the downward spiral of some of our most challenged schools, while we all throw up our hands and decide there's nothing to be done. I want to try and open up this conversation, even if it makes us all uncomfortable, because I feel like we need to develop another set of options from the ones we feel stuck in. We keep throwing money and new educational or organizational models at low-performing schools in the hopes that it will all magically work out into some improvement, without realizing that if there aren't enough people holding a school directly and personally accountable for the education of its students every day, those resources are largely wasted.

I'm not trying to vilify anyone who made the choice to move their children to a school or system that they thought was better. But I am trying to figure out how we don't abandon the children who weren't fortunate enough to make such a move, and how we save ourselves the future costs of that abandonment as a society. I think some of the answer is structural and systemic: changing our systems of school funding so they are no longer tied to the local tax base, and/or directing our statewide/nationwide education resources for facilities, materials, training, assistance and staff to the communities and schools facing the most challenges first; making sure that the incentives for school staff - and board members - are aligned with the achievement of the outcomes we want for our kids (although we've got to think through those incentive systems very carefully).

But I feel like the other part of the answer (and in fact the greater part, because without it the right structural changes won't happen, either) is a way for us as citizens of our localities, states and nation to really own our responsibility to take concrete action to ensure the best possible education for all those children who aren't our own, and especially for the children who won't get to move up and out to "better options." We need to make that concept moot in terms of instructional quality, educational outcomes and adequate preparation for their lives as adults. It might be through running for school board; or it might be through showing up at school board meetings. Maybe we teach, or tutor or volunteer to make up for the gaps while we work on building a better system. Really good afterschool opportunities matter, too; although we can't rely on afterschool to make up for the failings of in-school.

Anyway, I'm really trying to sort this out. How do we as individual citizens, both with kids and without kids, make choices in the short-term that don't compromise our future for the long-term? Your thoughts on the topic would be greatly appreciated!