One of the most popular remedies for our educational ills has been the idea of school choice. Students are not only compelled to go to public school (unless their parents can afford private education), they're also usually assigned to a particular school. Choice advocates claim that because schools -- unlike businesses can't lose their customers, many of them don't even try to do a good job. If students had a right to leave a school that was doing a poor job and switch to another school, they say, teachers and school administrators would be forced to shape up. If they didn't, they'd lose their students to other schools and maybe even their jobs.
There is no doubt that there's something attractive in the idea of choice. We have all experienced the eagerbeaver efforts of those whose bread and butter depends on making a sale and the indifference or sheer rudeness that often characterizes those who work in bureaucracies, whether public or private. We also know that the behavior of people is affected by knowing that there are consequences for their actions.
But although those who support school choice have some good arguments in their favor, they often ignore potential problems. A recent series of articles in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul) shows us some of them. Even though the series didn't deal directly with the issue of choice, its findings should inject a muchneeded sense of reality into the school choice debate.
The Star Tribune published six daily articles beginning last April 24th dealing with Minnesota's public and private vocational-technical schools. All these schools are schools of choice. The state spends more money on them than on all its state universities. Most also charge tuition. Since their market is students who want to get good jobs as soon as possible, it's no surprise that these schools often advertise with slogans like, "90% of all technical institute students start careers in their chosen fields. You can, too." But Star Tribune reporter David Peterson found a great gap between these claims and the facts.
Only 47 of 702 programs actually placed 90% or more of the students, while 222 programs placed fewer than 60%. "The placement rate was 68% at most, and that dropped to 50% when counting only full-time jobs that students held a year after leaving school," Peterson discovered. "Even those numbers are too generous, because they count as 'placements,' for example, a robotics technician who wound up mowing lawns, and electronics graduate taking care of animals and two electromechanical technicians working as janitors." Those who did find jobs in their field didn't do too well, either. About 23% of them "started at less than $5 an hour. One in six students in a 1988 survey earned a starting wage below the federal poverty line for a twoperson household."
It's easy to understand why students eager for training and jobs would fall for misleading advertising. But why did schools publicly funded by the state engage in deception? Those schools are funded by the state on the basis of student enrollment. More students means more money. As one voc-ed board member bluntly said, " ' The competition for students is everything.' " Here are some of the practices that the newspaper found:
• False claims of job placement - for example, counting a student who was employed in the same job before and after the training as one who had been successfully placed as a result of the school's program.
• Elastic definitions of those placed within the field for which they were trained. One school claimed to have a successful program for placing travel agents. Many of the graduates they called travel agents weren't. Some of them were desk clerks. The school justified itself by saying that part of a one-credit class was devoted to " 'making ... hotel/motel/resort arrangements.' " But students had to take 33 credits, and "travelagent training isn't needed to get a job as a desk clerk."
• Inflating the expected earnings of graduates. One school told students that, "Sheet metal careers pay around $24.50/hr." But the Star Tribune reports that the median hourly wage in this field is $12, and the top wage for scarce union jobs is less than $20."
• Requiring prospective students to come to the school personally for information so that the school could subject them to a personal sales pitch.
Why didn't the state check out these schools? That's just what Minnesota has been doing. It requires reports from the schools and also surveyed their graduates. There have been wide discrepancies between the two reports. But state officials mostly ignored this sign of trouble - and just decided to stop surveying the graduates, "their most credible source." Why?
The state claimed that information from students came too late -- 18 months after they graduated. But as Peterson said, that suggests "reducing the follow-up period rather than stopping the surveys altogether." The state also complained that the student surveys cost more than $100,000 a year. "But given the value of reliable information about the accomplishments of a system costing more than $150 million a year, the cost seems small."
Can the state put a stop to such practices? Perhaps it can - but it hasn't. Most of the regulations it needs are already on the books. But the state largely depends on the schools to tell it what they're doing and whether they're complying with the rules. As one state education official said to Peterson, "Someone's going to have me in their office for saying this to you, but look: I license schools that I have never laid my eyes on." Nor do legislators look at vo-tech institutes too closely. The schools are in their districts, and cutting their funds means cutting the bacon in their districts.
The moral of this story is that the ability to attract and keep students is not necessarily related to educational quality or effectiveness. Nor do regulations necessarily mean effective regulations. Making the right choices depends on good and honest information. Its availability should not be taken for granted.
School choice shouldn't automatically be rejected on the basis of some horror stories. But it's time to reject the claim that accepting choice means trading a troubled system for one that is trouble free.