Betsy DeVos has been a staunch advocate of the “party of choice” in American education. It believes that giving parents choice will lead to more innovation, and spur competition among all schools, making all education more competitive and more successful overall. Not only Republicans, but distinguished Democrats have been the supporters of this party in the past. The “party of resources” believes that improvement of K-12 education is possible with more resources, better paid and better trained teachers allocated to traditional public schools. Joe Biden’s pre-election platform sits squarely in the domain of the “resource party.” Both of these parties support accountability.
Why did the Democratic Centrists seem to abandon their support
for the party of choice in education? For a trumpist, it is evidence of the Left
wing taking over the Democratic Party. However, the answer is much simpler. With
time passed since the Clinton administration, we have much more evidence.
Effectiveness of charter school is still a matter of considerable debate (see a
decent review in Wikipedia.) However, the debate is really about the
margins. The revolutionizing effect of deregulation ma y people expected did
not happen. I don’t think anyone disputes that now. Yes, some urban charter
schools can be SLIGHTLY better than traditional public schools. However, the
seem to increase racial segregation, and may actually hurt certain groups of
kids more than help them. Again, these negative effects are also not very large.
The overall outcome of the debate is very, very boring: charter schools do
about as well as traditional public schools.
This is one of the few examples where social science may actually
have made a real impact on policy. At least, there is a visible shift within
the Democratic establishment. Thanks to numerous educational researches who
conducted hundreds of studies that made this shift possible. Those of who enter
into doctoral programs in education, should know this.
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