Posted on: Friday, December 6, 2002

School 'choice' law takes on new gravity

Yet another grenade has rolled out of the new No Child Left Behind federal education law and into the laps of local school officials.

Detailed rules implementing the new law make it clear that school districts cannot deny transfer requests from students at "failing" schools on the basis of lack of capacity.

To date, school officials here and across the country believed that the transfer requirement in the new law was limited by the capacity of schools to accept new students.

No more.

The rules say that the law "does not permit" a local school district to preclude choice options on the basis of capacity restraints, and all children attending failing schools have the right to transfer out.

Relatively few families in Hawai'i have thus far applied for transfer from one school to another. In most cases, one hopes, this is because they maintain faith in the school their child currently attends. But it's possible that many families chose not to apply for transfer on the theory that the school they would want to go to was already full.

Once they recognize they have an absolute right to transfer — assuming these rules hold up — the number of applications is bound to increase.

The theory behind the law is that schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress toward meeting state education standards fall under a variety of restraints and obligations. Allowing students to transfer out is one of the first steps, followed by state-funded additional tutoring, school restructuring and even takeover by another management entity.

The purpose of all this is crystal clear. Eugene W. Hickok, the undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Education, recently acknowledged that the Bush administration is up to no less than getting Americans to think differently about public education. "Public school choice and supplemental services should be part of how we see public education in America," he said.

But skeptics suggest the law is really designed to pave the way to vouchers for private schools. Unless Hawai'i is ready to accept vouchers and a mass exodus from the public schools (and we are not), then the Department of Education and the state administration must get ready to deal with these new realities.

The ultimate solution, of course, is to ensure that every school does make progress, is not judged as "failing" to meet our standards.

That isn't an easy task, obviously. It will take a tremendous commitment of time, money and energy to make that goal a reality.

But the alternative — abandoning our public school system as we know it — is not acceptable.