When I arrived at 5:15am I was the 4th person in line. The first lady was there at midnight, the second lady at 1am and the 3rd person was there around 4am. By the time the doors opened at 8:30am, there were around 75 people in line.
Two points:
1) I wondered if every school had a system of choice, then wouldn't the best schools have the longest lines?
2) If parents are willing to stand in line for 4, 5 or even 8 hours to get their child into a better school, won't these parents be more involved in something they had choice in?
You can argue lots of reason for school choice, private school, charter school, home school, but for me it comes down to choosing the best education that I can afford for my children. If the school is not teaching in a manner that recognizes my beliefs or my child is not doing well, I want to put them in a place that does and that my child will do well.
Competition breeds success. Once a school starts losing people and funding, then maybe that principle should be fired. Or better yet, if schools were like charter (publicly funded but privately run), then one could argue that they have so much stock in the school succeeding (much like a business).
Right now, we spend on average around $9-10,000 per child in the public school system. Some have argued the number is closer to $25,000 per pupil real money. Whatever the case, think of this. If you and 9 other parents decided to start your own school out of a basement then at current levels you could hire 1 teacher for $90,000 or two at $45,000. And that is with a 10-1 teacher ratio. I'm guess at least for the lower grades this would be fantastic. You could get a PhD candidate for $90,000/year. Based my observations, students-teacher ratios are more 20-1. So maybe it's not the money for public education that is the problem. Maybe it's something else.
Makes you think.
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