Rethinking the Welfare State: The prospects for ... - e-Library

Rethinking the selfare state 150
various alternative curricula, which focus on activities such as athletics, music, and even
military training, while still providing traditional education classes. These schools have
enjoyed a great deal of success in increasing the graduation rates of at-risk students.
Competition has proved to be useful in that “students alienated by the one-size-fits-all
system are staying in school because their schools have been encouraged to innovate.” 71
A recent longitudinal study conducted by the New Zealand Council on Educational
Research found that “principals and teachers believed that the impact of the educational
reforms on children’s learning, teaching content, and teaching style was overwhelmingly
positive.” 72
It is significant that charter schools have achieved considerable success in spite of the
many constraints under which they operate. For instance, even when proven to be
successful, charter schools are not generalized throughout the public school system, and,
as a consequence, only a small proportion of students in a given area can attend these
alternative schools. For example, in Michigan, fewer than 5 percent of school-aged
children are eligible to attend charter schools. 73 Further, in many jurisdictions, charter
schools face significant entry barriers in the regulatory requirements that must be met
before a charter is received. Only Arizona’s charter law places no limits on the number of
charter schools that can exist and allows almost any person/group meeting specified
eligibility criteria to charter a school. Other states’ legislation places heavy regulatory
and administrative burdens on charter schools, thereby effectively rendering charter
schools indistinguishable from public schools. Peterson has found that some states
“almost eviscerate the concept by giving the authority to charter schools to local school
boards.” 74 Similarly, in New Zealand, the government agreed that no new schools may be
opened if there is space for students in existing schools. 75 This means that some students
will be trapped in poorly performing schools simply because the good schools are filled
to capacity. Another barrier confronting charter schools concerns the lack of capital cost
funding (even in-kind in the form of access to existing public school facilities) that
confront charter school proponents in many jurisdictions. 76 The existence of a number of
these barriers to charter schools are not likely the product of a governmental
misunderstanding of the optimal conditions for the introduction of a successful
experiment in promoting the scope for choice in education, but rather the result of
political concessions to various stakeholders (particularly teachers’ unions) who are
opposed to the prospect of competition, particularly when there is the risk that public
resources may be transferred from the existing conventional system to the charter system
in response to student or parental choice.
Public voucher programs
Voucher programs differ from charter school models in that the state confers a voucher of
some explicit value directly on the parent, who can then apply this voucher in support of
their child’s enrollment in a broad range of different private schools. In this respect, the
voucher, on the surface, appears to be more conducive to enhanced choice than either the
open enrollment or charter school models in that the expenditure of the public subsidy is
not confined to the broadly conceived public school system. As Hepburn argues, “public
vouchers, if administered liberally, have the potential to create a dynamic educational
marketplace where educators are encouraged to innovate, to imitate successful practices,