A vote for an extension

The District of Choice program has been an educational option for parents in California for more than 20 years. The extension of this program — Senate Bill 1432, authored by Senator Bob Huff — was killed by a small minority of politicians in Sacramento who refuse to allow the bill to come to the floor of the Assembly for a vote. If the program is not extended, thousands of California students will be removed from the districts they have been attending and forced to enroll in a school district that may not fit their needs. Or worse, they may drop out of public schools and look to private or charter schools instead.

The extension bill was approved in the Senate with a 38-1 vote, and it has had strong bipartisan support and a positive recommendation in a Legislative Analyst’s Office report. Therefore, I support an extension of the District of Choice legislation, allowing parents to choose the best public school for their students.

The issue is not how many dollars a district has — or how many it loses — but rather, how a district uses the money it is provided through state funding,

As a public school administrator, I believe that any program that provides more public school options for parents only strengthens the entire system. Otherwise, parents who are dissatisfied with their local neighborhood school options are left with no choice but to flee to the private sector. Parents, not local school district boundaries, should determine whether or not a school district will best fit the needs of their child.

The program also creates healthy competition between school districts, allowing them to create, improve and market educational programs that will encourage their residents to attend their local schools. Oak Park Unified has done an outstanding job in this area and offers programs that meet the needs of the vast majority of our local community.  However, I am also aware that some parents in Oak Park believe that other local districts offer programs that better meet the needs of their students. As a result, Oak Park will always release students to these districts in support of parent choice.

Contrary to what the opposition states, the District of Choice program brings more diversity to our school district in terms of race, ethnicity and socioeconomics. It offers the opportunity for students of all backgrounds to attend one of the premier school districts in the state.

Students are randomly chosen in a lottery each year. This blind selection process ensures that every student who applies has an equal chance of being selected.

Opponents of the bill argue that it takes money from disadvantaged districts and gives it to wealthier districts because students are primarily transferring to wealthier, higher performing districts. This argument might make sense on the surface, but it begins to fall apart when you understand that “wealth” can be defined in at least a couple of ways. For example, in Oak Park, we are a wealthier district from a socioeconomic standpoint, because we are considered middle to upper-middle class. However, when it comes to school funding, Oak Park is near the bottom in funding per student based on the way school funding is done in California. Additional money is given to districts in lower socioeconomic areas to bridge the gap between the resources that a higher socioeconomic community might have to supplement education.

The fact that additional money may follow a student from a lower socioeconomic district to a district like Oak Park should not be a reason to kill the program. The issue is not how many dollars a district has — or how many it loses — but rather, how a district uses the money it is provided through state funding. The money that follows a student into Oak Park will be used to provide a superior educational experience for that transfer student with little impact on the district where the student is coming from.

The District of Choice program has been working successfully in California since 1993, and an extension of the program will continue to provide parents the choice that they deserve.