Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Another reason to support universal school choice.

The Arizona Daily Wildcat recently printed a Laura Donovan column about bullying in schools. (The original is superior to the version that made it to print.) "Where were the teachers?" is the million-dollar question.

But where are the rest of us, too?

It's a narrative I hear over and over: A student, usually but not always of above-average academic ability, having difficulty at government-run public school moves to a private school to escape cliqueish social nastiness and daily abuse, the "Lord of the Flies" culture that constitutes the "unifying experience" some on the Left use to justify the continuation of the one-size-fits-all model for education. Sometimes the change happens between middle school and high school, and sometimes it is a change of middle schools, high schools, or even grade schools that does it.

Stress levels drop, social life improves by leaps, and very often the student's grades improve as a result. It is simply unjust to expect such students' parents to make a double-payment for their child's dignity to be respected. Should Phoebe Prince's parents have had to pay double so their daughter wouldn't be driven to suicide?

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