School Choice

This summer I am researching and analyzing the school choice issue. Many of my friends have asked what "school choice" means - either specifically or generally - what I'm working on and towards.

So I'm going to spend a few blogs explaining the basics of what school choice is - and then talk about the arguments for and against school choice.

Basically, the bottom line of school choice is giving parents options on where they send their children to school.

How would this look? Well, that's where the confusion of what "school choice" is typically comes in. To break it down simply there is: public school choice and private school choice.

Public school choice would mean parents get to choose which public school their children attend. Some districts allow parents to do that - it is fairly rare for parents to be able to choose without such type of restraining condition, like "space permitting."

Within public school choice is also the option of "charter schools." Charter schools are funded publicly (not to the same amount as public schools typically) but are operated by a private entrepreneur. The idea is the operator can make all the decisions -- to spend more money paying teacher salaries, buying Smart Boards, or funding the soccer team. Also ideally, they would make all curriculum decisions as well. State-to-state laws vary on the amount of regulation charter schools must abide by.

Private school choice would mean (essentially) the money follows the student - whether the student went to a public school or a private school. The US spends $10,770 per pupil (on average - in 2007), so full private school choice would mean that each parent could use that full amount (average being $10,770) and choose any school they wanted - private or public.

That could mean a charter school, a religious school, or a traditional public - there are many options.

So that's the introduction on school choice for now. If you're reading - please post comments and/or questions. I would love to hear from you and will do the best to answer any questions and down the line... field some debate.

Graduation, New Job, Atlanta Traffic, and a Good Run

In the last 5 days I've graduated from college, moved out of my Charleston home, visited with my family in Aiken, pack up the childhood room and organize the last 6 years of my clothes, binders, books and notes and move to Atlanta!

On the way out the door to Atlanta my mom informed me of some great news --- my parents were letting me use one of their vehicles for the summer (Thanks Mom and Dad!) which is a huge sacrifice for them because they're down to 2 cars for 3 drivers. So I packed up all my stuff for Atlanta, and drove myself!

The job's been great so far --- exactly in line with my school choice interests. I got to sit in on a 2 hour school choice coalition meeting this afternoon. I'm also working a lot with research.

Atlanta traffic is another story! My drive from home to work is 17 miles. It took me an hour today to get home (partly because of a couple wrong turns). It takes a long time to compensate for wrong turns in a place like this --- particularly when you don't know the area very well. Joey has been very patient in letting me call him if I need to re-route based on a turn I may have made. However, I'm pretty proud of myself thus far... I am learning!

By the time I got back tonight I started tearing up a bit because of all the driving frustrations I think. But I went for a good long run in the trails on the Emory campus... a complete detox. Gosh, it felt great. Now Joey is cooking dinner for night #2 -- he's so sweet. It smells good!

Finally, thanks to everyone who made graduation a very special time for me! Thank you profusely to all the family who came in to visit (one even took finals early to come), those who called and all the friends that I got to celebrate with! It really makes you realize how what the important things are in life.