As you might have predicted, I’m a supporter of pretty much anything that gives parents more educational options for their children, including public school choice.  But public school choice isn’t without its flaws:

For Jamahl Stokes of Prince William County, the decision to attend the Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology 30 miles away in Fairfax County came down to this quandary Suffer more than two hours of commuting round trip for the privilege of attending one of the nation’s best high schools? Or enroll in the neighborhood school 15 minutes away near Manassas?

Jamahl went with T.J., as it is known, for his freshman year. Then he changed his mind. Too many nights spent awake until 1 a.m. because of football practice, the horrendous commute and piles of homework. Too many days sleeping in class.

"I definitely would have preferred having the school in Prince William," said Jamahl, 15, now a sophomore at Osbourn Park High School. "Some people get discouraged because when they hear about the prestige of T.J., they also hear about the commute, and they don’t necessarily want to go through that."

Public school choice is a good thing.  It gives parents options, and can get kids into better schools.  But as this example illustrates, the practice is inherently limited by logistics.  Adults dislike long commutes for work–who wants to make their 12-year-old do so as well?  By extension, I think the practice limits the critical component of parental involvement: the greater the distance the school, the greater the difficulty on the part of the parent to be engaged with faculty. 

Most parents simply want good schools in their own neighborhoods.  In this respect, the program is making the predictably positive impact: in response to demand from students, Prince William school officials are considering building a version of Thomas Jefferson in the district.  (Regular Edspresso readers will note that this is nothing new.)  But the rate of change and response is agonizingly slow.  Also, consider the type of school it would be: like Thomas Jefferson, an exclusive and extremely competitive magnet school.  It would definitely fill a need, but I think most people would agree this is the sort of school that only serves outliers.  

Which is why we need as many forms of choice as possible.  The kids are all over the bell curve; let’s allow them to go wherever they best fit.