Why do parents enroll children in underperforming schools when there appear to be better choices nearby? For some, transportation may be a dealbreaker, according to a new survey by the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education posted by EdWeek’s Debra Viadero:
The results suggest that transportation is especially challenging for low-income families, 45 percent of whom do not own cars, or who own vehicles that are unreliable. According to the survey, one third of those families said they did not enroll their child in the school they preferred due to transportation difficulties.
Dan Willingham recently unpacked one of the paradoxes surrounding school choice over at Britannica Blog with his patented cog sci spin. In particular, he takes issue with the argument that choice will improve the overall quality of education, since parents would not knowingly send their kids to “bad” schools. Yet they do it all the time. “Why should we expect people to make rational decisions about their child’s schooling,” Willingham notes, “when they don’t make rational decisions in other complex arenas?”
I can imagine an advocate saying ‘But the real point is that it’s the parent’s choice. If they want to send their kid to a mediocre school because it’s close to the home, that’s their business.’ Fair enough, but that is a different argument. We are no longer debating whether choice will improve schools but about philosophy of governance. What happens if parents do not make sensible educational choices for their children? We don’t let parents choose not to educate their children—there are truancy laws. Should society intervene if parents send their child to a school that the parents ought to know is terrible? And are we, as a society, going to allow people to make poor choices for which there is a collective cost? Perhaps this is the educational equivalent of letting people choose to drive without wearing a seatbelt.
When I taught in the South Bronx, I routinely (and quietly) encouraged dozens of families to enter their children in the lottery for the KIPP school less than a half a mile away, but few ever did. Meanwhile, the massive and dangerous middle school across the street was the top choice of students leaving my school. Granted, there were three basic flavors of middle school in the neighborhood : bad, worse, and abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-here Still, to Willingham’s point, a disproportionate number made what I perceived to be the worst possible choice. The one thing it had going for it was proximity.
Update: Jay Greene wanders into the fray at his blog and in the comments below.
I can sympathize with these carless parents, as I spent 18 months pretty much the same way. My DH and I owned 1 car and he needed it to commute to his job. He often worked past when public transportation stopped running (it wasn’t unusual for him to come home after midnight, ugh!) Taking public transportation with 2 young kids in tow turned every trip into a huge production. What takes 15 minutes to drive might easily take 1 1/2 hours via mass transit- walk to the bus stop, wait for the bus to come, take the bus, walk from the bus stop to the train station, wait for the train, take the train, walk to the final destination.
When we were deciding what to do about my oldest’s education, transportation logistics did factor into our choosing to homeschool. There was only 1 school within walking distance and it was an underperforming one. The school I liked best was 2 towns away and not easily accessible by public transportation. So in addition to the tuition cost, we’d also have had the added expense of a 2nd car.
Fortunately, my DH changed jobs to one with better hours & he was able to start riding the commuter bus. So if we decide at some point to enroll one or more of our kids in a traditional school, I would be able to pick one without having to worry so much about its location.
Comment by Crimson Wife — July 14, 2009 @ 11:07 am
It’s interesting that the choices of low-income parents are viewed as “irrational” if they don’t pick the highest performing school at all costs. My district hired someone to do a survey of parents regarding what elements they rate highly when looking at schools. Safety and willingness to work with parents outranked the school’s academic rating. I would not say that this means that parents are being irrational, simply that they are more sensitive to indicators that schools aren’t even looking at. If you throw in the rampant propaganda that says that the test scores don’t mean anything anyway–well, the choice becomes far more understandable.
Personally, I believe in the validity of test scores and tend to look at them not only in the absolute, but also with an eye to whether they are stagnant, or moving (and in which direction). But, I am loath to put a child in a school with excellent scores that has a reputation for or communicates a willingness to maintain that record by driving away undesireables. As a parent, it has also been my job to work out the before and after school arrangements which included coordinating transportation–not an easy job in a district that was not terribly family friendly.
Sometimes it is not only convenience, but tradition that impels families to the close-by school–where older siblings, and sometimes parents have attended. Not my cup of tea, but hardly irrational. One thing I learned long ago is that rational choices that apply to the situation of poverty may be quite different from those that apply within affluence. Springing for a taxi on the first of the month to go to the laundromat is incredibly inefficient and costly. But it is not irrational when living hand-to-mouth. It is required. Likewise, shopping at the ghetto IGA costs more than the suburban big box discount grocery–but it may be necessary. Frequently housing rental costs are the same, or perhaps less, on the fringes as compared to within the inner city. But such areas are also distant from needed services and often poorly served by public transportation.
This isn’t a rational vs irrational situation. Its an issue of most folks doing the best that they can with what’s available. Problem is, what’s available varies. Them that has, gets more.
Comment by Margo/Mom — July 14, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
M/M
I shouldn’t have use the word “irrational.” It has a particular meaning in the decision-making literature that differs from the everyday meaning. In decision-making it means making a decision that is in your long-term interests, usually defined financially. I used “rational” in a similar, narrow sense exactly because I have heard it argued as “obvious” that parents will choose the highest performing school for their kids, just as it’s “obvious” the people will, given the opportunity, choose a higher financial payoff over a lower.
Much of the research in this field in the last 40 years has been devoted to showing that people *don’t* make decisions on that basis. For example if I say to someone “If I offer the average person something worth five bucks or something worth 250 bucks, which will they take?” everyone assumes that the average person will take the latter. But specify that we’re talking about five dollar sandwiches (a choice between a free sandwich or 50 free sandwiches) and some people dont’ take the choice with the higher monetary value. (Do I really feel like trying to sell the other 49 sandwiches?) Taking one sandwich is an “irrational” decision in this sense. It doesn’t mean that it’s a dumb decision.
I wrote the blog because I sometimes hear it argued as “obvious” that people will not send their child to a low-performing school. This is as “obvious” as that people will always choose the higher monetary value of a choice. As you eloquently point out, people have other values that come into play, and they have constraints that make it difficult to enact a decision they might otherwise want to make.
Comment by Dan Willingham — July 14, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
In any event, it seems that the invisible hand alone will not solve our education problems–whether the cause be irrationality, lack of reliable information or huge logistical hurdles.
When I ventured this opinion at another blog–citing Dan–I was savaged by a pack of true believers. The ideologies of left and right are very difficult to change!
Comment by Claus — July 14, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
While I normally love Dan’s work, I think he misses the boat on school choice. See my response to his argument:
http://jaypgreene.com/2009/07/14/why-should-we-let-people-vote/
Comment by Jay P. Greene — July 14, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
And I normally love Jay’s blog, but I think he misses Dan’s point. It’s not a critique of choice at large, by my read, but a critique of the common argument that choice inevitably leads to a rising tide that lifts all boats.
Personally, I’d also add that I don’t see how the point about “rational/irrational” choices (see Dan’s comment above) weakens the overall argument for school choice. Indeed, the rising tide argument has always seemed at least somewhat beside the point. Perhaps this represents too small of a vision, but I see choice as a lifeboat–a mechanism to allow students to escape lousy schools. You don’t build lifeboats on the theory that their presence will pressure shipbuilders to make better damn ships. You build lifeboats in case the damn ship sinks.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — July 14, 2009 @ 3:58 pm
And I normally love Robert, but… I can’t think of anything funny to say. Darn.
In any event, I think choice does cause the tide to rise as long as parents, on average, make better choices than bureaucrats. Competition doesn’t produce perfection, but if schools are competing for consumers who are, on average, making better choices than bureaucracts, those schools will strive to be better.
Comment by Jay P. Greene — July 14, 2009 @ 4:23 pm
Jay
The point I intended to make was as Robert describes it. I was not intending to critique choice generally, but to critique one particular argument that I frequently hear, that sounds plausible, and that I think may be wrong. Although I said that I thought many people will not choose the “best” schools (defined by standard academic measures) I also explicitly said that it was not clear what the consequences of that choice pattern would ultimately be on school quality. The last line read “School choice might benefit the system, or it might not. But the argument that it will work because “Parents will pick the best schools for their kids” is not persuasive.”
In your blog you suggest that all that’s needed is that parents do a better job of selecting schools than bureaucrats who design schools. It’s not obvious to me that enough parents will be sufficiently dissatisfied to switch schools in numbers adequate to have much impact on the system as a whole. I think the best argument for choice (not addressed at all in my blog) is that, however large or small, it will help *some* kids somewhere, and that’s enough, even if it is not a solution that will impact most kids. (E.g., five of the counties adjacent to mine are thinly populated. It’s not plausible to think that these kids are going to have a much choice).
And while we’re all congratulating each other, I love your blog as well as Robert’s
Comment by Dan Willingham — July 14, 2009 @ 4:38 pm
I believe that Hanushek has actually studied the impact of varying kinds of school choice on either quality overall or the equitable distribution of quality. In most countries of the world some or all parents have some or a lot of choice. Even in countries in which students are primarily assigned by geography there is pooling of the well to do, based on parent choice to the extent that resources allow.
As I recall, Hanushek’s conclusion is that it is not so much the degree of choice that in the end makes a difference as much as the flexibility of the market. In a system that is able to respond to consumer (ie parent) demand for a particular school, or set of school qualities by expanding the availability, and at the same time responding to unpopular selections by limiting them or closing them down, there will be an overall increase in quality and the equitable distribution of quality. Where the supply of desireable options remains static, they tend to “pool” those students whose parents have the greatest ability to ensure that their offspring get the best. In this case, “choice” works to the advantage of the “haves” and the disadvantage of the “have-nots.”
Comment by Margo/Mom — July 14, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
I normally love my wife, but she doesn’t have a blog.
Comment by GGW — July 14, 2009 @ 9:04 pm
My main point is that parents don’t have to “pick the best schools for their kids” for choice to improve outcomes for their own kids as well as improving the education system as a whole. Similarly, people don’t have to pick the best restaurants for choice and competition to satisfy the consumer who is chooseing as well as improve the general quality of restuarants.
And I agree with Dan that whether markets work in education like they work in restaurants is an empirical question. Fortunately, there is a growing body of research that shows that school quality does improve with expanded choice and competition. See: http://jaypgreene.com/2009/04/27/systemic-effects-of-vouchers-updated-42709/
Comment by Jay P. Greene — July 15, 2009 @ 9:18 am
Hate to interrupt the love-fest, but I want to second two things that Margo said, above: sometimes, a school whose #1 mission is maintaining their superior test scores is absolutely the wrong school –and choice works to the advantage of the haves as often as it does to the have-nots.
A research-savvy friend who moved from Chicago to take a job as ed professor at Big State U decided to visit all 6 public elementary schools in the school district where she decided to purchase a home. She met with each principal, did a walk-through during school hours and looked her own unique set of qualitative indicators. Although principals often gave her school achievement data, she avoided comparing test scores until after she made her decision.
The school she chose had the lowest test scores (although–this being a college town, it meant their scores were in the 75th percentile, rather than the 95th, like the school with the highest scores).
Here are some of the reasons she chose this school: It had the greatest ethnic diversity mix. It had an outstanding music and drama program. It had the best playground (built by parents) which was utilized day and evening, since most of the students walked to school and lived nearby. It was in a funky, student neighborhood, with businesses and municipal buildings, instead of a sterile subdivision. There were flowers in front of the school, planted by students. The principal made a point of introducing her to as many teachers as possible, who felt free to chat with her. It was the oldest building in the district, a converted high school, and it had a kitchen, where classes could cook. It was the only elementary that did not use Accelerated Reader. In her walk-through, she didn’t see any comparative achievement charts on any wall.
Her daughter is thriving. Lots of different definitions of “rational.”
Comment by Nancy Flanagan — July 15, 2009 @ 9:49 am