Web site for Author Richard Neal: School Choice Leader. Index page

SCL RESEARCH ON CHOICE

In preparation to establish SCL, Richard G. Neal researched and published four books regarding school choice. These books are available at www.authorhouse.com or www.amazon.com.

Escape to Learning | The Deserved Collapse of Public Schools
The Alliance Against Education Reform
School Choice After the Collapse of Public Schools
Major Conclusions
Complete Freedom of Education Choice Has Specific Requirements

In the first book, Escape to Learning, the following conclusions were reached:

Monopoly is the problem. Public schools are government monopolies and as such embrace all of the failures associated with lack of competition. While American families enjoy choice in all others aspects of the lives, choice is not, for all practical purposes, allowed in educating their children. Monopoly is the root cause of all failures in public education.
Public schools minimize real choice. Government school monopoly has created a "one-size-fits-all" model that cannot meet the pluralistic education needs and interests of all children. This Prussian structure, designed to meet the needs of the state rather than those of the free individual, has little to do with student learning but much to do with bureaucracy and the needs of the bureaucratic minions. The public schools are built upon fallacious assumptions sold through school calendars, Carnegie units, class size, teacher certification, salary grids, school accreditation, and compulsion - all having little to do with student learning.
Government schools will not and cannot reform. While every other aspect of American life has been changing over the years, the public schools have remained mired in a bygone era and are unsuitable for today's education imperatives. The powerful status quoin public education is held in place by those who benefit most from it - teacher unions, pandering politicians, educrats, school board members and indifferent parents.
Collective bargaining is the single most destructive force in public education. It has created a powerful monopoly in teacher unionization that has practically achieved veto control over all attempts to improve education.
Higher salaries for teachers have no positive impact on student learning. Only a system that allows competition will make teacher salaries, based on merit, a factor in improved student learning. Contrary to the popular myth, teachers are currently well paid and receive many fringe benefits.
Teacher tenure has been corrupted from its origin as a system to protect academic freedom into a means to guarantee jobs for incompetent teachers. The consequences of tenure have weakened instruction for students and harmed the credibility of all teachers.
Education vouchers offer many advantages. They lessen the harm of teacher unions. They make education more accountable. They produce more efficient and effective means of learning. Choice helps public schools through competition. Vouchers provide a customer-driven education market. Vouchers are consistent with the basic tenets of American freedom.
Resistance to choice comes from special interests. All of the arguments against vouchers are specious and have been created by an entrenched education establishment that profits from maintenance of the status quo.
The potential advantages to vouchers are numerous. Equitably differentiated vouchers, in the absence of double taxation, will produce a veritable explosion in the diversity of tailor-made learning opportunities and will allow all students to expand, improve, and accelerate their own education.

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In the second book, The Deserved Collapse of Public Schools, the preeminent signs of public school failure were identified and analyzed. In addition, the contrived solutions to the problems of public schools were exposed for what they are - fraud.

Listed Below are some signs of failure:

Student achievement is stagnant. According to national and international standardized test scores, the academic achievement of American public school students has not improved in decades - despite the infusion of vast sums of money and extensive resources.
Dropout rates continue high. Despite the "official" reports to the contrary, students continue to drop out of school at a staggering rate. Many who remain in school have, for all practical purposes, dropped out. Many who remain in school - especially the gifted students - are stifled.
Many graduates are ill prepared. Millions of students who finally do graduate are unprepared for gainful employment or further education. Almost half of those who do go on to college drop out prior to graduation.
Immigrants clog schools. Millions of unassimilated aliens are interfering with the progress of their classmates. Unacculturated and unable to communicate effectively, these students are an expensive burden.
Student misbehavior is rampant. Contrary to "official" reports, student misbehavior continues unabated. "Zero tolerance" has turned some schoolhouses into jailhouses. The number one complaint of teachers is the problem caused by undisciplined students.
Many prefer home schooling. Perhaps as many as 2,000,000 students have deserted the public schools for home schooling. These students consistently score higher on achievement tests than public school students do.
Students flee at any opportunity. Millions of students have deserted traditional public schools for private schools, charter schools, and magnet schools. Others stand in line for vouchers, scholarships, tax credits, and intradistrict transfers, proving that many students want an alternative to government education.

All major efforts to improve government schools have failed. These "solutions" have been pushed largely by members of The Education Establishment, who have much to gain by avoiding real change.

Always more money. There never has been, nor will there ever be, a solution offered by The Education Establishment that does not require more money. "More teachers, more ancillary personnel, higher salaries, and smaller classes" is the chant of the establishmentarians.
Oxymoron: "Federal aid." Despite the absence of constitutional authority to do so, the federal government has for decades expanded its interference in education. Overall, the "aid" provided from the central government has been for naught - where improved student learning is concerned.
Funds wasted on teacher salary grids. Teachers in government schools are generally paid on the basis of years of experience and the number of college credits accumulated - irrespective of job performance. Approximately $200 billion annually is being expended on teachers' salaries and benefits. None of this money is dependant upon improvements in student learning, these funds will continue to be used ineffectively.
The myth of small classes. Teacher Unions, educrats, and politicians all claim that smaller classes are an elixir for all public school ills, and they have been taking that medicine for decades. But the original problems are still here and getting worse. Why? The answer is simple: no relationship exists between student achievement and across-the-board reductions in the size of classes.
Teacher certification: phony solution. The requirements for teacher certification and recertification have been expanding for decades, costing billions of dollars. The purpose of teacher certification is to provide a government guarantee that teachers, above all other college graduates, can help children learn, and that certification, alone, is responsible for enhanced student learning. Actually, teacher certification has little to do with student learning but much to do with perpetuation of the profitable schools of education, contrived restrictions on entering the teaching field, and deception through perception of legitimacy.
Bigger is not necessarily better. The Education Establishment has sold the American public a bill of goods: bigger and bigger school districts, containing bigger and bigger schools, improve education through economies of scale and expansion of curriculum options. The movement is less about improving learning for students than about moving power away from parents to the state government. The movement has harmed education.
Accreditation of schools is really certification of a failed system. Parents, students, teachers, administrators, superintendents, school boards, state departments of education, and colleges of education all agree that schools should be "accredited," as a guaranty of quality. In truth, accreditation means that the school has been certified as having in place all the basic elements necessary for failure.

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In the third book in the series, The Alliance Against Education Reform, the negative impact of teacher unions and school bureaucracies is discussed. With regard to teacher unions, the following conclusions were drawn:

Collective bargaining a big mistake. The second-worst decision in a public education was the introduction of an industrial model of collective bargaining. (The worst decision was turning elementary and secondary education over to government control.)
Teacher unions exert political clout. Teacher unions have grown rapidly and now are the dominant force against meaningful improvement in student learning.
Scope of negotiations is too broad. Although collective bargaining is designed for "bread and butter" issues, that is, compensation and benefits, teacher labor contracts often contain issues that preclude any meaningful improvements in education. Naturally, unions want the scope of negotiations to be as broad as possible.
Strikes have done much damage. During the past 40 years, teacher unions have engaged in thousands of strikes - almost all of them illegal. By holding (or threatening to hold) students hostage, teacher unions have intimidated school boards into making unwise concessions that they would not have made otherwise. Strikes by teachers are wholly inappropriate in public education. Strikers, and especially their union leaders, should be punished severely for striking.
Teacher unions intimidate through hardball negotiations. For reasons discussed in The Alliance Against School Reform, school boards have been unable to resist capitulation to union demands in many critical areas. The resulting contracts interfere with changes needed for improved student learning.
Teacher unions are the chief impediment to choice. By becoming an effective political force at the local, state, and national levels, teacher unions have been able to defeat most efforts toward radical improvement in public schools. As long as teacher unions are allowed to lock students in prison-like government warehouses, millions of students will be denied the right to a better education.
Teacher unions have reached their zenith. The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) will follow in the footsteps of private-sector unions toward irrelevance. As more parents and taxpayers learn the truth about teacher unions and as more demands are made for choice, the strength of both the AFT and the NEA will wither.
The power of unions can be overcome. By revising state bargaining laws to narrow the scope of negotiations and to punish strikers and their union leaders harshly, some of the sting can be removed from the unions' power. In addition, by prohibiting the use of union dues for partisan politics, the political clout of teacher unions can be minimized.

Our public schools have come a long way from the days of small schools and small school districts, where parents had a significant voice, to the hostile bureaucracies of large schools and huge school districts today where parents are considered to be the enemy.

A coalition has evolved to perpetuate government schools. The school bureaucracy is a coalition of hundreds of special interests and organizations that are deeply imbedded throughout the system. They all share one common bond that makes their existence possible - the public schools. Absent the compulsory government school monopoly, these groups would perish.
Big bureaucracies mean powerful unions. The combination of large school districts and centralized funding has created an environment conducive to monopoly union control and loss of parental control.
Bureaucracies foster litigation. Lawsuits are inevitable when a monopolistic school system tries to serve the pluralistic needs and interests of students. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been better spent otherwise have been spent instead in school litigation. If parents and students had free and open access to choice in education, based on individual contracts between families and schools, legal conflicts would be reduced greatly.
More bureaucracy through federal "aid." The involvement of the federal government in education has added another layer of debilitation bureaucracy on the schools, increased costs unnecessarily, and fractionalized the cohesiveness needed in local school management. Federal intervention continues to accelerate a dangerous trend toward centralized education control.

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In the fourth book in the series, School Choice After the Collapse of Public Schools, the following conclusions are drawn:

Choice is taking hold, and public schools are being forced to change. Approximately 20 percent of school age children have deselected public schools, forcing those schools to diversify programs to meet the varying needs and interests of students.
The right of the state and the right of the individual can coexist - educationally speaking. The right of the state to require a minimum education and the right of individuals to control their own education are not mutually exclusive. But private education programs financially subsidized by the government can work only if the government releases control.
Compulsory attendance should be abolished. Compulsory attendance does not guarantee learning. In many ways, compulsory attendance can actually harm students.
Specific preconditions are necessary for successful choice in education. The achievement of full education freedom does not take place without many changes in the status quo. Unless the specific prerequisites listed in this book are met, choice will not succeed.
Specific obstacles to choice must be overcome. The alliance between teachers' unions and The Education Establishment has created a Berlin Wall around the government school monopoly. Until that wall is torn down, choice cannot prevail.
Distinct differences exist between government schooling and learning in private programs. The opportunities for student learning under a customer-controlled competitive free-market system are beyond imagination. For many students, government schools have become impediments to learning.
Specific principles that should be adhered to in private education programs. Maximum learning takes place only if specific principles are followed. These learning principles are based on what's good for the student and not what's good for the adults in The Education Establishment.
Technology will continue to open learning opportunities that only few can imagine. The nature of the one-size-fits-all government schools prevents them from fully utilizing available learning technologies. Only a private system that recognizes the nature of multiple intelligences can maximize individualized learning.

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Major Conclusions

From these four books, several overarching conclusions about our public elementary and secondary schools are drawn. These broad conclusions set the stage for a description of education choice in a free market and explain how it is superior to our present monopolistic government school system. These conclusions are listed below.

By all accepted and reasonable measures, the public schools are failing millions of students.
Growing centralized government monopoly of education is the root cause of this shocking failure.
Teacher unions, under monopoly collective bargaining, have made the government monopoly even worse.
With a captive body of students under compulsory attendance, the public schools are now run for the primary benefit of adults in The Education Establishment.
All of the conventional attempts to "reform" the public schools have failed - despite the infusion of vast sums of money. It is impossible to save the public schools as long as they remain a de facto monopoly.
The only solution is a consumer-driven education market free of government control.

All of these broad conclusions can be summed up as follows:

The struggle between public schools and education choice is part of a larger struggle between those who believe that government should run our lives and those who believe in freedom from such government control. At the fringes, the differences between these two groups are extreme. Those who see government as the basis for enlightened civilization generally believe in monopoly public schools. They believe that the government owns America's children with regard to elementary and secondary education. Those who see freedom as the basis for enlightened civilization generally believe in freedom of choice in education. They believe that the education of America's children belongs to parents. This struggle will continue beyond our lifetimes, as education continues with one foot in the public sector and one foot in the private sector. Clearly, however, in increasing numbers, parents are choosing alternatives to traditional public schools.

These books are available at www.authorhouse.com or www.amazon.com.

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Complete Freedom of Education Choice Has Specific Requirements

For those who want absolute freedom of education choice, a different term is needed, such as "education transformation" or "education conversion." These terms imply a replacement of the existing education system with an entirely new system - a veritable metamorphosis. The present monolithic and socialistic government school system is a de facto monopoly trying to server a free and pluralistic society. The inherent conflict makes this task impossible. What is needed is a system that serves all interests of our heterogeneous student population. To achieve complete education freedom, a number of requirements must be met.

The system must provide for both the private and public good. Our nation has a right to require that its citizens master a core education as a basis for good citizenship. Each state would require each citizen to have a functional mastery of reading, writing, and speaking English, along with mastery of certain other basic skills in mathematics and science, as well as an understanding and appreciation for our freedom-based culture. This education could take place in either a private or public setting, and mastery would be based upon achievement rather than time spent in class. Any education beyond the basic education requirement would by parental choice - either in a public school or in a private education enterprise. This approach is a win-win proposition. The government gets what it wants: citizens with a basic and functional education; and the parents get what they want: an individualized education program for their children.
Parents must make education choices. In a choice program, parents must have the authority to make important education decisions for their children. At the basic level, they must be free to choose which schools (public or private) their children attend. Beyond the basic education level, they must be free to choose the education program(s) they want for their children. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) that "the fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in the Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have a right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations." In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Cleveland's voucher program, with the majority writing, "In keeping with an un-bbroken line of decisions rejecting challenges to similar programs, we hold that the program does not offend the Establishment Clause."
Education options must be accessible. Unlike the present anachronistic public school system, in which students are required to attend a public school in a specific attendance zone, complete freedom of choice means that students have accessibility to their choices regardless of their place of residence.
Money must follow the student. To achieve complete freedom of choice, parents - not the state - must pay for education choice. In other words, the money follows the students. Consequently, without students, there is no money. As long as parents are paying the bill, government intrusion is less likely to occur. This concept is not new. The G.I. Bill (for college education), food stamps, low-income housing vouchers, Pell Grants, federal day-care grants, Social Security, and Medicare are all examples of public funds that are spent at the discretion of the individual citizen. A formula for determining how much money should follow each student is contained in one of my earlier books, Escape to Learning.
There must be competition. Under our present government school monopoly, a public school cannot go out of business by law - no matter how poorly it performs. Many school districts around the nation exemplify this situation. Under a true competitive choice system, a school or education program stays in business only as long as its customers are satisfied. If the education enterprise does a poor job, it goes out of business. One of every three students drops out of school. Suppose one of three cars dropped off the assembly line. Suppose one out of three gas pumps did not work. Suppose one out of three UPS packages got lost. If schools were competitive, all students would have a place.

Market Education: The Unknown History

There must be a profit incentive. The free market is a fascinating phenomenon. It requires that businesses compete with each other to determine which can serve the consumer best. Those who serve the consumer best attract investment capital. This investment capital enables the best providers to expand. This process has provided a high quality of life for Americans. This same system will work in education. Just as the free market created pressure and opportunities in the private sector to continuously develop new and better products and services unimagined in the past, so will competition for education entrepreneurs to continuously develop new and improved education opportunities. For such competition to flourish ...
There must be minimal governmental intrusion. Our current government school systems operate on a top-down basis. The state has the money and the state dictates which type of education students are allowed to receive. In contrast, education freedom is based on a bottom-up system, in which the parents have the money and the parents dictate what education t heir children will receive. That's real education power! Minimal government intrusion means that ...
Parents must be allowed a very wide array of choices. Parents should be allowed to choose education programs that are specialized. Although education establishmentarians choke at the idea of such choices, their lives are not the ones at stake. Parents have to be trusted to make their own decisions about their children's education welfare - whether or not those decisions make sense to others who have different interests.
Adequate funding must be available. Under the terms of the win-win plan discussed earlier, parents own vouchers that can be redeemed as they see fit. The value of these vouchers should in the public schools. (the sentence was broken within the paper document.) Each parent should be required to supplement the voucher somewhat. This increases parents' commitment to the choices they make. Full-value vouchers might be interpreted as a free ride and thus be devalued.

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