Steve Hinnefeld writes a terrific blog in Indiana.
In this one, he explains that public schools get better when parents become active and use their voice.
They do not become better when parents vote with their feet and exit the door to a charter school, a private school, or something else.
I am going to be watching this blogger.
He understands how our public schools are being wrecked by misguided ideas about consumerism, the free market, competition, and choice that are not successful outside of the financial sphere.
Of course, if your goal is not to improve public schools but to privatize them and turn them into money-making ed-ventures, then choice works well indeed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As a former urban public school PTA President, I found that It does not have to be either choice or voice, it can be both. Sometimes educators pay more attention to families when the families have options.
For example, a number of Minnesota high schools have established new collaborative courses with colleges and universities. This is happening in part because high school students may enroll in college and university courses on college campuses, with state funds following them.
Some school districts have established a Montessori or Core Knowledge school or school within school in response to parent requests in part because they know families could go elsewhere.
We found a district middle school was more willing to discuss increasing challenge in some classes in part because the administration and faculty knew that we (and other families) had other options.
Voice and choice can compliment eachother.
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Indiana also put on the brakes regarding Common Core:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/13/indiana-halts-common-core-implementation/
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Wow! Thank you for sharing. I hope other states will follow.
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I appreciate your blog! I am a retired educator from Colorado, distressed about the fact that our state “leaders” have adopted Common Core — hook, line and sinker — sinker being the operative word. We are set to implement this mess this coming fall, and our state is one of nine which will use a pilot program to data-mine students and their families in Jefferson County (close to Denver.)
How do we assist in putting this whole thing on pause when we have a legislature that will not listen?
Sandi Wickham Woodland Park
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Or if your goal is to keep up with the proverbial Joneses in the parent pecking and social order and getting the “best” for your children but you know you can never afford private school, you get on the charter school bandwagon (for places where the public schools are perfectly fine but you are too needy for social elevation and think that charter schools are the back door to getting it).
For many it is a sign of being common to send your kids to public school. (For us we always point out that in our town you have to drive past at least three perfectly good free, public schools to get to the expensive private one).
I even know people employed in the public schools who advocate for charters at the same time, it seems so they think they are more socially acceptable. Wannabes.
I know this is not always the case (I also have friends in Kansas City for whom a charter is purely about education in a system plagued by years of corruption)–but here in the south it is about being cool and “better.” But usually by people with no wealth of their own (just the hopeful invitation to parties given by those with wealth).
And they are so self-righteous you almost hate to break it to them that everybody’s poop does, afterall, stink.
Peer pressure for parents is as bad as middle school peer pressure, I think.
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Please ignore the previous two attempts to comment. In the first I forgot to remove angle brackets around some URLs, in the second I removed all angle brackets but failed to indicate why I’m commenting a second time. Here’s a third try.
Regarding “Voice, Not Choice,” some Ravitch blog followers might be interested in recent post “Economist Hirschman’s Argument Against Private Schools and Vouchers” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:
********************************************
ABSTRACT: Bernard Cleyet (2013) in his PhysLrnR post “Another
argument against private schools and vouchers,” called attention to
Malcolm Gladwell’s (2013) “New Yorker” review titled “The Gift of
Doubt: Albert O. Hirschman and the power of failure” at
http://nyr.kr/19Hj0e7. This is a review of Jeremy Adleman’s (2013)
“Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman”
http://bit.ly/18nlsFa.
Hirschman’s argument against private schools and vouchers is
contained in this passage from Gladwell (paraphrased; my CAPS):
“Hirschman quoted the conservative economist Milton Friedman who
argued that SCHOOL VOUCHERS SHOULD REPLACE THE CURRENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM, writing ‘Parents could express their views about schools directly, by withdrawing their children from one school and sending
them to another.’
Hirschman commented: ‘a near perfect example of the ECONOMIST’S BIAS
IN FAVOR OF EXIT AND AGAINST VOICE: In the first place, Friedman
considers withdrawal or exit as the ‘direct’ way of expressing one’s unfavorable views of an organization. A person less well trained in economics might naively suggest that the direct way of expressing views is to express them! Secondly, the decision to voice one’s views and efforts to make them prevail are contemptuously referred to by Friedman as a resort to ‘cumbrous political channels.’ But what else
is the political, and indeed the democratic, process than the digging, the use, and hopefully the slow improvement of these very channels?”
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To access the complete 8 kB post please click on http://yhoo.it/14G8T2j .
Regards,
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articleshttp://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52
“Even when our trust is heavily placed in them, reasoning and education cannot easily prove powerful enough to bring us actually to do anything, unless in addition we train our Soul by experience for the course on which we would set her; for if we do not, when the time comes for action she will undoubtedly find herself impeded.”
– Michel de Montaigne (quoted by Adelman (2013) in his frontispiece)
REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 30 June 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “Economist Hirschman’s Argument Against Private
Schools and Vouchers,” online on the OPEN! Net-Gold archives at
http://yhoo.it/14G8T2j. Post of 30 Jun 2013 07:04:51-0700 to AERA-L
and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being
distributed to various discussion lists and are also on my blog
“Hake’sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/158hAVk with a provision for
comments.
REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 30 June 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “Economist Hirschman’s Argument Against Private
Schools and Vouchers,” online on the OPEN! Net-Gold archives at http://yhoo.it/14G8T2j. Post of 30 Jun 2013 07:04:51-0700 to AERA-L
and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being
distributed to various discussion lists and are also on my blog
“Hake’sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/158hAVk with a provision for
comments.
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