From Patricia Levesque, executive director of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, in the Shreveport Times (H/T to EdFly Blog and Jay P. Greene’s Blog):
The rhetoric surrounding parental choice often becomes apocalyptic in tone, despite very clear evidence that it improves public schools. Much of the Louisiana discussion has focused on the issue of accountability. Louisiana’s statute provides for student testing and includes strong mechanisms to remove under performing schools. This is a higher standard of accountability for private schools than the standard that applies to school districts in Louisiana, and across the nation. The bottom-up approach created by empowering parents to vote with their feet if their child’s school is not meeting their needs represents the ultimate form of accountability. No amount of regulatory compliance can hope to match a system of decentralized parental choice. Compliance models focus on school and grade level average results, while empowered parents focus on the particular needs of their child. Full op-ed here.
