Policy Analysis

Educational "Choice": Its Appeal May be Illusory Author(s): Alexander W. Astin Source: Sociology of Education, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Oct., 1992), pp. 255-260 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2112768 Accessed: 18-03-2018 02:19 UTC

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E X C H A N G E

This issue marks a newfeature-the Exchange Section-in which we will publish brief articles on controversial matters of public policy and social concern on an occasional basis. To inaugurate the section, we present an exchange between Alexander W. Astin and James S. Coleman on school choice.

Sociology of Education is known for the quality of the research it publishes. With this section, we are creating a forum in which authors can explicitly connect their work and ideas to public debates on education. The pieces in this section should have a scholarly base, but we do not want them to be laden with footnotes, references, or data. They are meant to stimulate debate. Ideally, as in the present case, they will be engaging and clearly written. We invite our readers to contribute ideas for future exchanges.

JULIA WRIGLEY, Editor-in-Chief

KEVIN DOUGHERTY, Deputy Editor

Educational "Choice": Its Appeal May Be Illusory ALEXANDER W. ASTIN University of California, Los Angeles

One of the central features of Pres- ident Bush's Project 2000 plan for rejuvenating this country's educa- tional system is the concept of "choice." Originally a pet idea of conservatives because it attempts to apply "free market" principles to our public schools, choice is now being seriously considered by policymak- ers on both sides of the political spectrum. What is choice? Would it really improve the schools? What are its possible risks?

The basic idea behind choice is to change the manner in which tax reve- nues are used to finance primary and secondary schools. Instead of merely allocating funds directly to the schools (usually on a per-student basis), a certain portion of these funds would go directly to the students (or par- ents) in the form of vouchers. Equipped with such a voucher, each

student could then shop around for the "best" school. The school that the student finally chose would be able to "cash in" that student's voucher and thereby receive the additional money represented by the voucher. The primary assumption underlying the concept of choice is that the overall quality of the school system will increase as individual schools compete with each other for prospec- tive students' vouchers. Just as the quality of commercial goods and services is supposed to increase as profit-oriented businesses compete with each other in a "free market" for customers, so are schools expected to improve their educational programs as they compete for students' vouch- ers.

Would a voucher system really work as advertised? To answer this question, one first needs to look at how the free market operates in the business sector. When several differ- ent companies compete with each other for a particular set of custom- ers, at least two things are likely to happen: The most successful compa- nies tend to grow in size and the least successful ones tend to shrink and

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possibly go out of business. Let me defer for the moment the question of whether such a Darwinian scenario always re- sults in "higher-quality" goods and ser- vices and consider first how the "growth" aspect of the business analogy plays out in an educational setting.

When a particular public school is "successful" in the student "market," does it grow to accommodate the addi- tional demand? No. And why not? Be- cause it is not basically a profit-making entity. Successful profit-making busi- nesses grow to accommodate the increas- ing demand for their products or ser- vices because growth tends to increase profits. What, then, does the "success- ful" public school do? It becomes "selec- tive." Notable examples of such schools would be the Bronx High School of Science, Bronx, New York, or the many ''magnet" schools that have come into being in recent years. In short, since the size of successful schools in the educa- tional marketplace does not usually increase, the least successful schools seldom go out of business: Students have to attend school somewhere.

The process of selectivity does, how- ever, have an important effect on school systems: It tends to concentrate the "best" students in a few selective schools. "Best" in this context usually means those students who are the most tal- ented, highest achieving, and most highly motivated, since these are the qualities that are most valued by selective schools. Such students, in turn, tend to come from the wealthiest, best-educated, and most advantaged families. The net effect of differential selectivity is thus to strat- ify schools according to the abilities and socioeconomic status of their students. These realities suggest that one highly likely consequence of implementing a policy of choice would be to magnify the existing social stratification of the schools.

The likely effects of a freer choice system on stratification in our public schools are perhaps easier to see by looking at American higher education. Higher education in the United States represents a much "freer" market than

precollegiate education does. As a con- sequence, American higher education is highly stratified and hierarchical, with a few prestigious institutions at the top, a substantial "middle class" of institu- tions that aspire to an elite status, and a large group of community colleges and poor private colleges at the bottom. Because they are highly "successful" in the student "market," universities in the top stratum, such as Harvard and Cal- tech, could probably grow at least ten- fold if they wished to, but they have preferred to remain at a relatively con- stant size for many decades and to enjoy being highly selective. It is difficult to appreciate the extraordinary amount of stratification that such institutions sig- nify: The bottom 20 percent of Caltech's entering freshman class is better pre- pared academically than is the top 20 percent of the freshman class at 95 percent of the other institutions in the country. If one compares the 25 most selective institutions of higher education with the 250 least selective ones, one finds incredible differences in socioeco- nomic status: Well over half the stu- dents' families earn more than $75,000 in the most selective institutions, com- pared to less than 10 percent in the least selective institutions. When it comes to incomes below $30,000, the pattern is reversed: About 10 percent of the stu- dents' families in the most selective institutions and more than half those in the least selective institutions earn that amount. More than 80 percent of the students' fathers are college graduates in the most selective institutions, whereas 75 percent of the students' fathers are not college graduates in the least selec- tive ones. In addition, the most selective institutions spend more than three times as much money per student for educa- tional purposes as do the least selective institutions.

Even if the analysis is limited to public institutions, one finds remarkable differences. The median parental in- come of students entering the 50 most selective public institutions is about twice that of students entering the 50 least selective public institutions ($56,000

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versus $28,000). Differences in the per- centages of students whose fathers have college degrees are also substantial: 64 versus only 23 percent. Institutional stratification in the public sector of higher education is the result not only of "free market" forces that lead to differ- ential selectivity, but of conscious pub- lic policy. In a state like California, for example, students are simply not al- lowed to enter the most selective institu- tions (the eight university campuses) unless they rank in the top one-eighth of their high school graduating classes. The resulting stratification of public institu- tions in many states has been reinforced by policies that put the main burden of expanding "access" on the community colleges and other nonelite institutions. Thus, both the growth in population and the expansion of higher educational opportunities to a larger proportion of the state's population have contributed to institutional stratification because they have allowed the most selective public institutions to become even more selec- tive while the "base" of the stratified system expands.

If the likely response of the public schools to a voucher-supported system of "choice" is to become more stratified, what is the likely response of the private schools? Private schools are inclined to support such a plan, of course, because the vouchers serve to reduce the costs that the parents must bear to send their children to such schools. In essence, vouchers represent a governmental sub- sidy for parents who want their children to attend private schools. Given that such parents are likely to be more affluent than are parents of public school pupils, "choice" will inevitably have other effects as well: It will encourage more middle-class parents to send their children to private schools. Most private schools, like their public counterparts, will probably respond to this increased demand by becoming more selective, rather than by expanding their enroll- ments. They may also try to become even more ''excellent" by raising their prices. If these price increases are not sufficient to discourage the increased

demand, new, cheaper private schools may be founded to meet it. The point to keep in mind is that private schools, in the foreseeable future, will continue to serve primarily the middle and upper classes, given that all the voucher plans that have been proposed so far are designed to cover only part of the total costs of educating students. And even if the voucher covered all costs, the selec- tive private and public schools would continue to be differentially accessible to children from the higher socioeco- nomic levels, simply because such stu- dents enjoy a substantial competitive advantage over poorer students when it comes to the usual means that selective schools use to choose their students: standardized test scores, performance on interviews, essays, marks in school, letters of recommendation, and so on. If nothing else, the state systems of higher education show that simply equalizing the cost of attending different types of public institutions does little to dimin- ish the social stratification that results from selective admissions.

The discussion so far indicates that one predictable consequence of imple- menting a "choice" policy will be to contribute to the further stratification of a public and private school system that is already considerably stratified: The best prepared students from the most affluent and best-educated families will become increasingly concentrated in a limited number of elite schools, while the poorest students with the lowest levels of academic motivation and pre- paredness will be consigned to schools in the lowest strata. What are the conse- quences of such an outcome for the overall "quality" of schools? Although it is possible to make a case for having more elite schools ("centers of excel- lence"), what about all the others, espe- cially those in the lowest strata? In what sense is it desirable to have a large number of public schools in which all the students are poor, most parents are poorly educated, and all the students are low achievers? "All" would be poor because those parents with even modest economic resources would probably do

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258 EXCHANGE

everything possible to keep their chil- dren out of such schools (hire tutors, pay to send the children to nonselective private schools, and so on). And "all" would be low achievers because the few students who happened to achieve at a moderate or higher level would most likely be eligible for admission to more selective (higher-stratum) schools, and they would probably take advantage of the opportunity.

The point is simply this: The freer the 'choice" system and the larger the size of the voucher, the greater the resulting stratification of schools. Although hav- ing more elite schools could be viewed as contributing to the overall "quality" of the system, it is hard to see how such a gain would not be more than offset by the further impoverishment of schools in the lowest strata. The long-term con- sequence of such a change in the schools is clear: Existing socioeconomic differ- ences within the larger society will widen.

This discussion also suggests that implementing a policy of "choice" in the public schools will not necessarily create powerful economic incentives for schools to improve, simply because the "better" schools will not deprive the other schools of students (and, therefore, of voucher money) by expanding. What a "choice" plan will almost certainly do is to redistribute (stratify) existing stu- dents according to their levels of achieve- ment. Advocates of "choice" may argue that lower-stratum schools, in their des- peration to avoid a mass exodus of their higher-achieving students under a "choice" plan, may implement new programs (such as honors programs) that are designed to cater to such students. The problem here, of course, is that such policies inevitably involve a trade-off of resources, such that resources devoted to the education of less-well prepared students will necessarily be siphoned off to support programs for the higher achiev- ers.

Perhaps the most fundamental ques- tion is this: What are the schools under a "choice" plan supposed to do that will both improve the quality of education

and attract students? Most traditional approaches to enhancing the quality of schools-reducing the size of classes, improving physical facilities, and attract- ing better teachers -cost money. Where is the money to come from? And even if a school was somehow able to make significant improvements in quality with- out additional resources, there is no guarantee that such improvements would attract more students. Lessons from the U.S. higher education system suggest that there is by no means a one-to-one relationship between a college's per- ceived quality and the actual educa- tional benefits that accrue to its stu- dents; some of the most effective colleges, as measured by their actual effects on students, are not perceived as particu- larly excellent by prospective students or their parents.

This point brings me to another aspect of the "free market" analogy that has important consequences for "choice": the role of information. Classical econom- ics tells us that a free market guarantees the highest-quality goods and services for the lowest price only when the consumer has "perfect information" about all the available goods and ser- vices. In the free educational market that "choice" is designed to create, how are students and parents supposed to get this information? And just what informa- tion should they get?

It is instructive to see how the prob- lem of "perfect information" works itself out in the world of business: Most of the information is provided by the purvey- ors themselves! And the medium for communicating this information is ad- vertising. Despite what the advertising industry may want us to believe about the role it plays in this process, it is manifestly clear that the function of advertising is not to inform but to sell. Indeed, much advertising attempts to sell by misinforming the public about particular goods and services. In fact, one of the principal strategies in adver- tising is simply to familiarize the public with the name or identity of a product. "Brand recognition" is considered to be paramount when several different com-

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panies are competing to sell the public what is basically the same product. Brand-name products are much more expensive than are identical "generic" versions of the same product, in part because of the extraordinary costs of advertising.

What if a freer "choice" program with vouchers is actually introduced into American primary and secondary schools? And what if it actually suc- ceeds in fostering more competition for students? Is it likely that the schools will follow the lead of business and rely heavily on advertising to market them- selves? Again, it is instructive to look at the "freer" market represented by the higher education systems. Many private colleges (and even some public ones) spend well over $1,000 per admitted student in their marketing and recruit- ment efforts, and expenditures of more than $2,000 per student are not uncom- mon. Under these conditions it is not unreasonable to suppose that the pri- mary and secondary schools will follow suit. But can they afford it? Is the quality of schools likely to increase if the schools suddenly feel compelled to di- vert some of their already-limited re- sources into marketing?

And what about the quality and rele- vance of information that would be provided by each school? Advertising for toothpaste, headache preparations, or beer is one thing; advertising for primary or secondary schools is quite another. And who is to regulate the process? Certainly, there will be a need for some governmental oversight, since govern- mental funds would be involved. If the federal Student Right to Know Act for higher education, recently passed by Congress, is any indication of what we would be in for, governmental regula- tion could make things worse, rather than better. This law requires colleges to publish their retention rates, but ignores the fundamental issue of the types of students each college admits. Retention rates (an output measure) are meaning- less (and likely to be highly misleading) if we do not also know something about the quality of students who enter the

institutions in the first place (input measures). Unfortunately, the law makes no provision for gaining this informa- tion.

One problem with trying to generate serious debate about the possible nega- tive effects of "choice" is that the proposal has a lot of superficial political appeal. Who could argue with the prop- osition that students and parents should have greater freedom of choice? What parent would object to receiving a cash voucher for each child? Certainly, most parents whose children attend private schools (or who may consider sending their children to such schools) are in favor of "choice." And why not do something to make the schools more "accountable?" Why not make them "work" for their students? Choice is especially appealing to people with con- servative leanings because it utilizes "free-market" principles and especially because it is not supposed to cost anything. Besides, the president of the United States and his secretary of educa- tion have already gone on record as supporting "choice."

These political considerations may well tempt the proponents of "choice" to avoid engaging in any serious discus- sions about its possible downside. But the public deserves better. We are deal- ing with the lifeblood of our nation: our young people's minds and our system of public schooling. "Choice" is a radical concept. It will no doubt be highly disruptive to many public schools. But will it make them any better? How can it avoid making a school system that is already stratified even more stratified? What impact would greater stratification have on a society in which the gaps between the haves and the have-nots are already dangerously wide? Why is "choice" not merely a subsidy for the well-to-do parents who send their chil- dren to private schools? How can "choice" avoid forcing the public schools to embark on an intensive campaign of marketing and hucksterism? At a mini- mum, the public deserves a full airing of all these questions before any final decisions about "choice" are made.

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Alexander W. Astin, Ph.D., is Profes- sor and Director, Higher Education Re- search Institute, University of California at Los Angeles. His main fields of interest are higher education policy, values in higher education, and the impact of the college environment on students' development. He is currently conducting a study on strategies for reforming American higher education.

Some Points on Choice in Education JAMES S. COLEMAN University of Chicago

The movement toward choice is the first step in a movement toward getting the incentives right in education- incentives for both the suppliers of educational services, that is, schools and their teachers, and for the consumers of education, that is, parents and children. The incentives for schools that a voucher system would introduce would include an interest in attracting and keeping the best students they could. The incentives for parents and students would include the ability to get into schools they find attractive and to remain in those schools. These incentives already exist, of course, but in the absence of choice by parents and schools, they can be implemented only by moving. That is, parents can implement their interests by moving to a school district or attendance zone within their financial reach that they find most attractive. Principals and teachers can implement their interests only by trying to get transferred to a school with a student body that is more to their liking. The results are unfortunate in several respects. For both the schools and the parents and child, an important incen- tive to improve is missing: The school cannot attract students by improving itself and cannot dismiss students who do not live up to its standards, and the

student and parents have no incentive to perform and behave well for the student to be in the school they aspire to. This absence of appropriate incentives on both sides of the educational process means that an important source of edu- cational improvement is missing.

A second consequence of the absence of choice in education is that there is extensive stratification of schools, but unlike the comparison used by Astin of Caltech and low-status colleges, this stratification is based entirely on income and race. For example, the incomes of parents of children at New Trier High School in a wealthy Chicago suburb differ far more from those at Chicago's inner-city Dunbar High School than do those at the most selective colleges from those at the least selective. The result of choice in elementary and secondary education, whether confined to the pub- lic sector or including the private sector through vouchers, would not be to increase stratification; it would be to replace the current stratification by in- come and race by a stratification based on students' performance and behavior. To be sure, students' performance and behavior are correlated with income and race, but they are a different basis for stratification that both changes the grounds on which the competition for schools and students takes place and reduces the stratification by income and race. To use an example introduced by Astin, the top students at the selective Bronx High School of Science in New York City (as well as the student body as a whole) are far more diverse in income and race than are the top students (or all students) at New Trier High School or any other suburban school in North Shore Chicago. (I use Chicago-area schools as an example because I am familiar with them, but nearly compara- ble stratification can be found in almost any large metropolitan area in the United States.)

It is perhaps time to be straightforward about stratification among schools more generally. Numerous scholars inveigh against choice on grounds of "inequal- ity" or "stratification," as does Astin.

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