Our View: A step toward school choice
Private operators place bids for up to one-third of L.A. schools
Unshackling students from government-run schools was advanced this week when Los Angeles officials' voted to allow private operators take over up to one-third of the city's public schools.
Enough parents finally had enough of underperforming schools and persuaded trustees to approve by a 6-1 vote a far-reaching "school-choice" resolution. The measure permits private operators to submit plans to run more than 50 new schools planned to open in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and 200 existing schools that have fallen short of federal test standards. We'd like to see all the district's schools given the same opportunity.
The decision bucked union opposition. The United Teachers Los Angeles union criticized the plan as "privatization" of public education. We wish it were. At least it loosens the strangehold on countless children effectively confined in the public school system.
Union officials reportedly worried that opening schools to private operators could "effectively lead to the privatization of public education by letting parents and community members decide if they want their school to be a magnet, pilot, charter or traditional school."
Simply re-stating the union's opposition reveals its absurdity. Who better than "parents and community members" to make that choice? Certainly not unions.
We agree with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's observation that the vote means, "no more monopoly, no more held captive to only one choice."
Critics of the change say studies show a minority of charter schools nationwide perform worse than comparable noncharter schools. But a majority perform better. Even so, such comparisons miss the point.
Even if parents prefer their children attend lower-performing charter schools, their choice should prevail. To assert otherwise assumes that arbitrary standards must dictate, rather than parental rights. There may be myriad reasons parents prefer alternative programs. That decision should rest with them, not with bureaucrats or politicians and not with unions. That's about to be the case in Los Angeles. Next, we hope, the rest of the state.
