A study out last week shows school choice doesn’t end inequality. So what?
Here’s what the folks at Measure for America used New York City data to prove:
Kids from neighborhoods where most families are intact, well-off and college-educated are much more likely to finish high school than children from areas where even the few married parents are undereducated and low-earning.
Duh.
The point of school choice — especially the high-school-choice reform embraced under Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2004 — is to add options for people in underprivileged ’hoods. His team ended the practice of automatically assigning children to neighborhood high schools, allowing and perhaps inspiring families to reach for more.
Bloomberg & Co. set out to break up the city’s massive failure factories — huge high schools that offered zero hope for their largely minority students.
And they made some real progress, boosting graduation rates from a dismal 45 percent to 70 percent.
Today, 60 percent of city students attend high school outside their “zone.” Many more poor kids from The Bronx and Brooklyn are graduating today than in 2005.
That’s great, in and of itself — and also means their children will have a better shot at academic success themselves.
Of course, far more needs doing: If you’re behind at the start of high school, it’s brutally hard to catch up. The city needs to massively improve its middle and primary schools, too.
Choice can help here, too: Every day, the best charter schools prove that kids from rough neighborhoods can compete with their more-privileged peers.
Mayor de Blasio this month faces a second state Senate hearing, with his continued control of the city schools on the line. He’d best show up with some serious plans that go beyond someday offering new computer-programming and algebra classes.
He can bring Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña to talk about copying from successful schools like the Eagle Academy. Some thoughts on eliminating some of the worst work rules in the United Federation of Teachers contract would help, too.
“ZIP code must not be destiny” is pretty much the motto of the school-reform movement. It damn well ought to be de Blasio’s, too.