School choice or Orwellian choice?

The Montana congressional leadership is once again trying to convince the public that school choice is the best way for students to succeed in school. We hear words like, choice, freedom, educational reform, or academic excellence to promote these charter school bills.  

The party that wants charter schools are quite accomplished in their promotional tactics. George Orwell would be impressed. He would call these hot button words doublespeak: words that sound great but have entirely different meanings. Once one reads these educational bills and listens to the doublespeak spouted by its proponents, their meaning of school choice becomes ambiguous, misleading, and dangerous.

Public schools that open their doors to each and every one of God’s children will be replaced by privatization, and educational opportunities of these schools will go to the highest bidder. How you might ask? Simply by diverting tax dollars to a business or “non-profit.” It’s all the rage haven’t you heard? Currently 42 states have allowed similar bills to be passed and the results have been less than encouraging. 

Montana has resisted this movement mostly because of the power of the governor’s’ veto pen. But now we have wealthy philanthropists that feel they know more about how to educate children than the professionals that have dedicated their lives to this effort.

One political party has promoted these charter school bills and most of them are written by an out-of-state bill mill called the American Legislative Exchange Council dedicated to “free enterprise”: another doublespeak for making money on the taxpayer. The philosophical reason for this movement stems from the fundamental dislike and distrust of government of all stripes. Yet, if they would have their way, the schools that we have in Montana would be outsourced to some corporate entity.  

The promoters are some of the same people who enjoy public roads, courts, public defenders, judges, bridges, prison guards, parole and law enforcement officers, social workers, and countless other services that make their lives easier and safer. The advocates of “school choice” are also the same people who would deny that jobs done in the public sector are less important. 

 Another motive behind “school choice” is that there is money to be made in education. For example, the state appropriates approximately $5,000 per student for each school. If the advocates of school choice have their way, new charter schools would receive taxpayer funds that would otherwise be allocated to public schools. This would further reduce the amount public schools would receive in order meet the needs of our children. 

Since the advocates of charter schools and privatization have controlled the state Legislature, the funding for public education has decreased dramatically and the cost of college tuition has skyrocketed. Yet, in spite of this attempt to strangle public schools into nonexistence, Montana public schools rank seventh in the United States while teacher salaries have stagnated at 40th in the nation. 

With increased defunding, how long can this success last? Montana graduation rates are at an all-time high and getting better and our state’s dropout rate has consistently declined over the past five years.  Here at Lincoln County High School in Eureka the graduation rate is 90 percent (state average is 85 percent and 81 percent nationwide) in spite of the budget shortfalls that continually plague our district.  

College graduates who want to teach cannot afford to teach in Montana because of the huge student loans made possible by legislative defunding of our university system.  

Often, these private charter schools, which claim to help at-risk students, spend less time and money on students in order to make them profitable while getting dubious results. In addition, charter school teachers are often not certified by the state or qualified to teach. And who will benefit the most from these for-profit charter schools? Not the average public school student. Not the 70 percent of our grade-school students that qualify for free or reduced lunches. Not the cash-strapped school districts in rural Montana that continually have to cut programs, cut teaching and maintenance staff. 

And so here we are, once again the educational community has to fight against the naysayers, the misleading narrative of our state elected representatives, even though by virtually every measurement, our students and our public schools are excellent — some of the best in the country — and getting better.  So why the necessity for putting our children in the hands of profiteers? And why would any Montana legislator that is genuinely concerned about all our children want to support private charter schools that damage our public school system? 

James teaches social studies at Lincoln County High School in Eureka.