The Pros And Cons Of Zoned Public Schools

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Across the United States, a raging public debate weighs the pros and cons of school choice. Expert policymakers struggle between supporting zoned public schools and their new alternatives. Parents wonder where their children will be best served. Most of the time, students are caught in the crossfire.
The struggle between zoned public schools and various alternatives can be viewed microcosmically in New York City’s district 3, where charter schools and public schools enrolled by lottery have drastically changed the education landscape. The district, which runs from West 59th street to 122nd, has increasingly favored choice in recent years. Within district 3, a notable disparity has formed in performance between zoned public schools in Harlem, …show more content…

Of the six district 3 elementary schools in Harlem where students take state tests, only one approaches 38 percent proficiency in reading and 36 percent in math, the city’s official passing rates. In one school, only 6 percent of elementary and middle schoolers pass the math exam. While test-scores may be reductive as metrics of success in a school, they seem to point to a legitimate issue. These schools have no gifted and talented programs, struggle with underenrollment, and strain farther and farther each year in attempts to pass state tests, hoping to secure better funding. In the world of school choice, it is the only way they can …show more content…

Those who missed deadlines, or whose parents don’t know their options, or who require special education or disciplinary supervision, fall into horrendously underfunded, poorly programmed schools. This is the dark side of school choice.
United States Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos contends that choice is the key to effective education reform. DeVos promises that the nation’s young will receive stronger education if granted the chance to leave struggling schools for better options—largely through “school voucher” programs using federal and state subsidies to fund each student’s private education, and through charter schools, not beholden to governmental standards and management. In a policy address on Wednesday, March 29th, DeVos advocated viewing education funding as “investments made in individual children, not in institutions or

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