
School Choice Is the Enemy of Justice - eevilspock
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/opinion/charter-schools-desegregation-los-angeles.html
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sytelus
We recently were forced to buy an expensive small house in “good” school area
and several people I know have done same. I really don’t think I can agree
with author here. Charter school or not, it is difficult for a poor family to
put their kids in good schools simply because they are priced out. Segregation
occurs because minorities doesn’t have a choice which schools they can send
their kids in current system. Government already assigns you a school when you
buy a house in many states. The “good” public schools don’t have many minority
students today precisely because of this reason.

Public school system in US is essentially a government monopoly and comes with
all evils that a typical monopoly would demonstrate. Many schools can’t fire
bad teachers, many mismanage their finances, many have incompetent
administrators and NONE of them have to make their customers happy or be
efficient in order to survive. Customers are handed over to them on silver
plater regardless of their performance or improvements. It’s not a surprise
that US school system spends top dollars and get placed almost at the bottom
in the developed world. But it is a surprise that Americans have accepted this
government monopoly, decided to pay through nose mortgages for good school
areas and think of this as good deal for their taxes.

Schools must compete for customers if we want them to see improve. We pay
taxes and government averages out dollars per student. That’s all good but I
should be able to take those dollars and go anywhere I wish to educate my
kids. Government should not have a say over exactly which school my kids may
or may not attend. It is a common sense and only way to eliminate segregation.
Schools that no one wants to go can die out or be bought by different
management. When schools get over subscribed, new entrepreneurs can move in to
area and start new schools. They can observe areas for improvements in
existing schools and implement them in their new schools to attract new
customers. A continuous cycle of improvements ensues and that’s how things
gets better over time instead of getting stagnated under government monopoly.

