Public school choice presents many challenges

By Ellie Ashford

8/27/02 – School districts across the country are facing a variety of challenges as they begin to implement the public school choice provisions required by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.

Some of the nation's largest urban districts, with long lists of schools eligible for choice, found an insufficient number of slots to which students could transfer. Some districts had to deal with last-minute revisions to their state's list of schools needing improvement. And districts with early start dates had to delay the implementation of school choice until after students had returned to class.

NCLB requires school districts to give parents whose children attend a school identified by the state as needing improvement a choice among two or more better-performing public schools. This provision takes effect for the 2002-03 school year, and districts must provide transportation to students choosing another school.

In Chicago, where 179 schools are on Illinois' list of schools needing improvement, the district is implementing school choice as a pilot program for only 50 schools.

This is being done "to avoid massive disruption at the beginning of the school year" because the information on which schools must provide choice "came fairly late in the game," says Marilyn F. Johnson, general counsel for the Chicago Board of Education.

The state board of education approved this plan, and the U.S. Education Department is "comfortable with it," Johnson says. "The law requires us to make a good faith compliance effort. In 2003-04, we will implement a more comprehensive choice plan."

The 179 schools have a total enrollment of 30,000, but the district came up with less than 3,000 openings at schools not on the state's list.

"Capacity is a huge question," Johnson says. Some of the receiving schools have as few as five open slots. In selecting receiving schools, the district also rejected schools more than three miles from the home school.

Under Chicago's pilot choice program, 40 of the city's low-performing schools have each been paired with two (in some cases three) better-performing schools, to which students can transfer.

Another 10 under-performing schools have been organized into four clusters. Each cluster contains two or three schools needing improvement and two to four better schools that students can choose to attend.

According to the district's latest figures, about 1,600 students will choose to transfer, Johnson says.

She acknowledges that some of the receiving schools are not significantly better than some of the schools on the state list, noting that "they barely made the cut off."

Johnson expects the district will have to shuffle some teachers around. "We won't know until the dust settles."

Accommodating special education students who transfer will be "another challenge," she says, as receiving schools will have to make sure they can provide all the services required in students' individualized education programs.

According to Johnson, 145,000 of Chicago's 437,000 public school students already participate in voluntary school choice unrelated to NCLB.

Schools started early

Many school districts that started the 2002-03 school year in mid-August were not able to implement public choice before classes started.

Students in Clayton County, Ga., went back to school Aug. 12, but the deadline for parents to apply for choice was Aug. 23. "That's the earliest we could do it. We were prepared to implement the program in July, but didn't even know which schools were affected until Aug. 9," says Paul Kraack, public affairs coordinator.

District officials originally thought there would be 14 schools on the state's list of schools needing improvement. But then the state decided to count only 2001 test scores because the 2002 scores hadn't been released yet. That meant the list of choice schools was cut in half.

Each of those seven schools –all are elementary schools–have been paired with two receiving schools. The district doesn't know yet how many students from these schools will want to transfer. Parents must notify the district by the end of August, and students will report to their new schools on Sept. 16.

Test scores delayed

In Wichita, Kan., only two schools are offering parents the option to choose another school, and so far, no parents have chosen to transfer their children, says the school district's communications director Wendy Johnson. "We don't expect numbers of any significance," she says, noting the district has only received a handful of phone calls from parents about choice.

Parents of children at Dodge-Edison Elementary School, which is managed by the Edison Co., had until Aug. 22 to notify the district that they want their children to transfer to one of four receiving schools. Marshall Middle School, which has a later starting date, gave parents a deadline of Aug. 30 to choose from among two receiving schools.

Johnson says there has not been strong parent demand to take children out of those schools because both of them have developed comprehensive improvement plans.

As many as 13 other Wichita schools might have been eligible for school choice this year, but because of a "glitch in the computerized scoring for the reading portion of the state test," those tests must be rescored and the state won't have the results until middle or late September, Johnson says.

The state education department has determined that any school that doesn't receive its test results until after the start of the school year will not have to implement choice mid-year. Those schools could be eligible for choice next year, depending on whether they make adequate yearly progress at the end of this year.

Another two schools might have been eligible for choice this year, but the district is petitioning the state to have a new baseline established for them.

Those elementary schools had formerly been operated by Edison, but the district has transformed them into district magnets, so they have totally new curricula, new teaching staffs, and a large number of new students.

In Jackson, Miss., the only two schools on the state's list for school choice are alternative schools with limited enrollments, so the district isn't yet sure how it can provide choice.

One of the schools, Capitol City Alternative School, is restricted to middle and high school students with "poor decision making in terms of behavior," says Superintendent Earl Watkins.

The other one, Morrison Academic Advancement Center, is for middle school students who are at least two years behind academically.

Watkins says the district is working with the Mississippi Education Department to see whether it could offer other choices to those students and to improve the instructional program at both schools.

Choice not new

Districts that already have had public school choice programs are expected to have a smoother adjustment to the NCLB choice requirements.

In Portland, Ore., for example, "Choice has been a real clear part of the district for a long time," says Public Information Director Lew Frederick. The new choice requirement "is just a variation of that. This is not as big a deal for us as it is for other districts."

Only three schools in Portland–Jefferson, Marshall, and Roosevelt high schools–are on the state's list of schools needing improvement, and thus, subject to the choice mandate. Of the 3,000 students eligible, only about 100 applied, Frederick says.

More than half the transfers are from Jefferson, which will have its fifth principal in seven years this fall and where less than one-tenth of the students reached state benchmarks in reading and math last year.

The district will provide passes for city buses to students at those three high schools who want to transfer elsewhere.

Those students can choose to attend any other Portland High School, except for two which don't have any extra space and one which is a technical and engineering magnet with selective enrollment.

Frederick expects the NCLB choice requirement could create some challenges for the district by necessitating changes in the courses offered and requiring some teachers to be transferred.

Before NCLB was enacted, the district already had estimated 500 students would take advantage of the district's existing choice program.