Yes, as a matter of fact, we DO know what’s best for your kid
Wake County, North Carolina, where Raleigh and surrounding suburbs are located, reports huge successes in its program to economically integrate public schools. The main emphasis of the program is avoiding large concentrations of low-income students in one school. Placing poor kids in a middle-class learning environment has been shown to vastly improve their chances of doing well, because of exposure to kids, teachers, and parents with higher expectations. It seems like a no-brainer when you think about it in these simple terms, but lots of (mainly white, upper-middle income) people get really upset about the government forcing kids to attend particular schools, which are sometimes far away from home and in a different kind of neighborhood.
I grew up in Dallas, and was enrolled in private school at a pretty young age because the conventional wisdom around town was that the public schools, especially in the Dallas school district, were just terrible, and you should avoid them if you could afford to. There was a lot of resentment among North Dallasites (white and higher-income) over the forced racial integration in the 60’s and 70’s. People say that “bussing” was the worst thing that ever happened to Dallas schools. Kids from black neighborhoods were shipped up to North Dallas and vice versa. The overall quality of all the schools declined - as if the presence of a few blacks and Mexicans in the classroom could ruin everyone’s experience of pre-calc. But this was Dallas in the 70’s, racial tensions ran high, and people freaked out. The program, consequently, was never fully tended to its fruition.
As the Raleigh article points out, the integration measures succeeded because they were not done in isolation - there were many other factors involved. This exact program would not work in every city. The Research Triangle area is doing very well economically, and corporate and community leaders are supportive of the school district’s efforts. Notably, the media are supportive - this is incredibly important. It’s frustrating to watch news on TV or read the letters to the editor when I’m visiting Dallas, and see conservatives whipping up a froth of panic over some sort of progressive thing that the government might force them to do - and to see the black and hispanic members of city council portrayed as crazy, ignorant wingnuts.
The people who frevently believe in school choice and educational vouchers don’t see that such programs inhibit cultural and economic integration and make the problem worse. If a frightened white family is given a choice of public schools or a private school, won’t they just choose the one that has the most “people like us” in it? Will a kid from a poor family have any clue that these voucher programs are available? And what happens when the poor kid lands in the middle of an affluent school - will there be any sort of programs in place to help him catch up academically and integrate socially with everyone else?
School voucher proponents tend to be of the mindset that giving someone an “opportunity” means doing nothing at all - that just being alive means you have every opportunity in the world, if only you will choose to take it. Sadly, these people are living in a dream world. Children should not just be dropped at the door of their chosen school and left for the wolves to devour. They need to be led to the well of opportunity and shown how to retrieve the bucket.
Education is a serious problem in this country, and it’s not the place for politics and polemics. This is exactly the sort of thing that needs serious, sustained regulatory and financial efforts over a long period of time in order to fix.