Inner City Schools Are “Drop Out Factories,” Teacher’s Unions Are To Blame
Denver Post columnist (and Say Anything reader/podcast guest) David Harsanyi has an interesting column about dropout rates in America and what’s causing them.
He notes that in areas where dropout rates are the worse tend to be urban (Baltimore, for instance, has a 66% dropout rate), but some of the places where dropout rates are much better are the suburban areas just outside of these urban areas (the Baltimore suburbs have a 19% dropout rate). What’s the difference? Suburban parents tend to be much more affluent, and thus can better practice school choice by moving to different school districts or sending their kids to private school. Urban parents, however, tend to be less affluent and less capable of such moves.
Thus, urban parents are unable to pull their kids out of poorly-run schools before it’s too late and the kids drop out.
So what’s the solution? I think we can all agree that promoting education is one of the most basic and appropriate roles of government, at least on the state level. But forcing parents who have no other choice to send their kids to bad public schools doesn’t seem much like “promoting education” to me. So what we need to do is give these less-affluent, inner-city parents the power to choose a school for their kids. That means school vouchers.
What’s standing in our way? Teachers unions, and the millions of dollars of influence they exert on the political process. The unions and their members themselves would say that all of our school woes are the result of funding issues, but the truth is that failing inner-city schools are some of the most expensive in the nation.
The real solution to school problems is choice, and every time the teachers stand in the way of choice becoming a reality they promote dropouts.
pparets
The Whistler
Puzzlefeet
Kevin
Carrick
