CHOICE IN EDUCATION: DOES THIS MEAN CHOICE FOR ALL CHILDREN?

It is very enticing for the casual observer to say that choice in education is a right that we should have for our children. However, there are many complex issues that must be addressed before we accept this as a reality, regardless of politics. Because of federal program and civil rights legislation for persons with disabilities, the issue of choice, if accepted as a right for any child, must then be addressed as a right for all children, including those with disabilities.

Public schools began to meet their responsibility to educate children with disabilities after lawsuits and landmark federal and state legislation. They now recognize the policy of zero rejection, the idea that no child, regardless of how severely handicapped, can be excluded from school. Are private and religious schools prepared to operate under the same rules?

The strings attached to choice

The push toward offering parents and students choice in education establishes the potential for public schools to compete with private schools for public funding. One format being discussed this election year is President Bush's State and Local GI Bill for Children. This bill would give middle and low income families $1,000 scholarships to help send their children to schools they choose: public, private or religious.

What is less obvious is that regulatory strings come with government money. For example, touted by President Bush as a hallmark of his administration is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This law states there can be no discrimination against persons with handicaps in public accommodations. Private and religious schools will become just such public accommodations when they start taking state and federal money to educate the public's children.

Lack of funding

The $1,000 proposed by President Bush will only begin to fund an education for any child. The parents or school must come up with the rest of the cost of a private or religious education. As accommodating children with disabilities can often be quite expensive, this public money will have little or no effect on providing choice for children with disabilities, leaving most all handicapped children in the public schools with the children of the low- and middle-income families who cannot fund the remainder of their children's private or religious education.

This will establish a two-tiered educational system of haves and have nots, with students who experience disabilities certainly in the second group. Segregation and class distinctions of this type with tax dollars are unconstitutional and would not pass a challenge in even the most conservative court.

If a full voucher system is implemented, the parents could invest all their child's education dollars, widely reported in Missouri to be between $2,400-$9,000, in any school they wish. This is still not enough money to adequately educate many children with disabilities.

The public schools have the legal responsibility of funding all the costs of teaching the most difficult children, even when they do not have proper funding. Are the private and religious schools prepared to do this, too? Are they ready to accept the notion that they may not turn any child away because of a disability? Are they willing to design programs to meet the needs and maximize the potential of children with disabilities? Are they prepared to educate these hard to teach children without the ability to expel them or send them back to the public schools when they misbehave, no matter how unruly the students become? Are they ready to design alternative ways to meet the educational needs of children who do not even wish to be in school? Are they aware that this is what is required of public schools in this country?

The real choice

Appropriate special education is challenging, must be innovative, is always expensive, and is never funded adequately. In this challenge, is it not better to spend the money creating the best education possible rather than building competing systems that may all be inherently inadequate because of a lack of proper funding?

Choice in education means choice for all children, including those with disabilities. Let the choice be implementable, defensible and wise: building the best possible public school system for all children, one in which every child can get an education that is state of the art. Idealistic? Yes, but achievable, if we fully fund public education with proper reforms, including appropriate education for those with disabilities.

Larry Lowrance, Ed. D, professor of elementary and special education at Southeast Missouri State University.

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