Hiner | Parents would feel more hopeful if given the option of school choice.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Leslie Hiner

In the midst of a recession, more than three years of high unemployment and widespread foreclosures, parents of children attending Atlanta Public Schools should not have to face another dilemma: the worry of finding another school.

But news that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools put APS on probation and could revoke its accreditation already had sent many parents scurrying for options.

Taxpayers must pay for public education no matter the quality. Now Atlanta parents are forced to pay twice to find an accredited school or let their children face the consequences of staying in schools run by a dysfunctional board. Some will try to move, but it takes an average of 145 to 1,350 days to sell a home in Atlanta. Others will try to win the lottery at a charter school. Others will try home school if they can.

Most children will be trapped in the ruins of APS. Superintendent Beverly Hall’s national awards cannot erase the harm done to Atlanta and its children as a result of the cheating scandal under her watch.

The trust that Atlanta’s parents, children and taxpayers placed in their public school leaders has been broken. They are now left to pay the price. Children thought they were learning to read and write on grade level, but adults who changed answers on state exams lied to them. As in the nationally acclaimed film “Waiting for Superman,” the adults in APS who were more concerned with their contracts and false reputations failed to see they were denying students a chance for a bright future.

Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate and father of the school choice movement, said government grows bigger and more dysfunctional unless it has competition. Only when parents have the freedom to send their child to any school of their choosing will all schools rise to the challenge of providing an education that parents, children and taxpayers can trust again.

Now is the time for Atlanta to embrace school vouchers and educational freedom. Why not?

A 2009 study by the Friedman’s Foundation for Educational Choice and the Georgia Public Policy Foundation found that the 38,000 dropouts in 2007 cost taxpayers $4.8 billion in incarceration costs, new Medicaid enrollees and greater government assistance. In addition, the study found that a modest school voucher program would save students’ lives and taxpayer money.

The graduation rate at APS was an astonishing 50.5 percent in 2008, according to the National Center for Education Statistics; the per pupil expenditure was $15,460. If parents could use half that amount to send their child to a private school, it would give hope to these youngsters whose futures are quite grim. In 2008, the average private school tuition for all Georgia private schools including religious and independent schools was $5,940; $7,500 would go a long way.

The Atlanta business community should get behind school vouchers if Atlanta wants to remain a world-class, 21st-century city. If business expects Atlanta’s children to achieve like students in Singapore, Bangalore and London, then at this point it’s obvious that only school choice and educational freedom will give students an opportunity to learn.

Leslie Hiner is vice president of the Foundation for Educational Choice, the legacy school choice foundation of Milton and Rose Friedman.