[Previous] [Contents] [Next]

Teachers Warm to School Choice

by Deroy Murdock

If you ask those involved, school choice works. Sixty-three percent of parents with children in Cleveland's voucher program, for instance, are "very satisfied" with the academic quality of their kids' private schools, according to a 1997 Harvard survey. Students seem happy, too. The Edison Project—a company that manages public and charter schools—sees its pupil attendance at 94 percent and turnover below 10 percent, levels better than at most public campuses.

But what about teachers? Evidence grows that those in America's choice schools enjoy their jobs and prefer such schools to public campuses. For reformers, these teachers seem like natural allies in the struggle against the unions, bureaucrats and politicians who impede school choice.

Charter school teachers seem especially content. Last year, the Hudson Institute surveyed 521 teachers at 36 charter schools. Among its findings: 93.2 percent of those surveyed were "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with their schools' educational philosophies; 94.4 percent are similarly pleased with their fellow teachers.

Many teachers also have voted on school choice with their children's feet. 18.9 percent of Los Angeles public school teachers send their children to private schools, for example. This also occurs in major cities with chaotic schools such as New York, (21.4 percent), Boston (24.4 percent) and Miami (35.4 percent). Only 13.1 percent of the general public has children in private classrooms.

Compensation quickly enters any story on teachers and school choice. But despite the claims of teachers' unions, higher pay doesn't always produce broader smiles.

"Despite making 52 percent more money on average than their counterparts in private schools, public school teachers are only one-third as likely to be highly satisfied in their profession," says Paul Steidler of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution in Arlington, Virginia. According to a July 1996 Education Department report, 36.2 percent of private school teachers were "highly satisfied" at work while only 11.2 percent of public school teachers could say so.

School reform also could improve teachers incomes. "Were government schools to become as efficient as private schools, teacher pay could increase substantially," Steidler says. If public schools could match the 46 cents-per-dollar that private schools spend on teacher pay, Steidler estimates, average public instructors' salaries would grow from $38,509 per-year today to $54,421.

Statistics and salaries only tell part of the story. Surveys cannot capture the enthusiasm choice teachers display. After three years in the Prince George's County, Maryland public schools, Christina Foster joined Community Day Charter School in Lawrence, Massachusetts. It educates 196 students from Kindergarten through sixth grade. Smaller classes are among the most dramatic changes she's witnessed. In Maryland, Foster taught 33 first graders without help. Now, she and a full-time assistant teach 22 students.

"We decided the best way to spend our money was to get assistants for all our teachers," Foster says. She adds that the teachers and administrators reached this decision quickly. "In the charter schools, you don't have to put everything through a school board and all that bureaucracy." Foster also sees fewer discipline headaches. "With small class size, there's less time off-task and less opportunities for things to happen," she says. "I'm not saying the children are perfect in every way, but it's a lot easier to handle things."

Foster says the school has experienced growing pains as teachers and an "extremely supportive" administration incorporated planning time into teachers' schedules and decided which faculty members would handle cafeteria duty. Nonetheless, Foster calls her time at three-year-old Community Day "a really positive experience. It's great to work where everyone is motivated, the teachers, the parents, and the children themselves."

Just two miles from where LAPD officers beat Rodney King, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center is helping kids stay in school and out of trouble. This charter school serves 1,140 pre-Kindergarten to fifth-grade students. They are 95 percent Hispanic, 5 percent black and 99.4 percent eligible for federal school lunches. "I personally feel I have more freedom. I feel more empowered. I feel more in control," says first-grade teacher Rebecca Camacho. She began in the LA public schools in 1989 and was at Vaughn when it switched from public to charter status in 1993. Since then, her classes have shrunk from 32 students to 20. Teachers do much of the administrative work and save the school money. Last June, they paid themselves 3 percent more than what their counterparts earned in the LA public schools.

Camacho misses her public-school colleagues and finds the extra hours tiring. But even here she sees a bright side. "It's like people who work at a factory who own the factory," she says. "You really work harder because you have a vested interest. You want it to work, so you're going to put a little extra into it."

New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a Senior Fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia and a correspondent with Headway Magazine from which this is adapted.

[Previous] [Contents] [Next]

info@fraserinstitute.ca You can contact us at the above email address for any comments or information requests. Please report any dead links or technical problems.

If you know someone who would be interested in this web page, please enter their email address below, and we will forward this URL to them: Email Address: