Reforming Public Schools Research Assignment Paper

Reforming Public Schools
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Reforming Public Schools
Close to fifty million students in the United States of America enroll in public elementary and secondary schools while about six million enroll in private schools, according to the National Centre for Education Statistics. As depicted by these figures, it is undoubtedly true that public schools are enrolling an enormous portion of the American students but not because it is out of their wish rather due to the government assigning them these schools based on their location and the enticement of fully subsidized fees. The poor performance has called for proper restructuring and reformation of the education system, which begins with streamlining the public elementary and secondary education. Satisfactory reforms can be achieved through free market remedy, enhancing choice in elementary and secondary education and breaking bureaucracy among the public schools.
Making elementary and secondary school education to be a free market will require the public schools to compete among themselves and private schools for the students which will enhance effectiveness in service delivery and high output. According to economists, a free market is where the government refrains from interfering with the business activities. Although many people would argue that a free market would lead to disparity, the truth is that free market encourages competition in the marketplace. Competition keeps prices of commodities in check (Friedman, 1990). The competition also makes the sellers and manufacturers cautious about the quality of goods since if they sell inferior goods, the customers will opt out and go for quality goods from other manufacturers or sellers. Thus, competition makes the sellers be innovative and dedicated to offering high-quality products and services to the consumers.
The idea of making education a free market will incorporate these values into the education system. Removing government control over education will imply that the government withdraws the power of allocating students to schools and providing the vouchers for both public and private schools. The schools will have to be innovative and offer quality education to the students so as to be competitive and attract the students as the companies in a free market do to attract the customers (Abrams, 2016). Making education, a free market poses several advantages. First it will allow parents to withdraw learners from a school whenever they feel that a school is not operating to the preferred standards and take them to another school that is oriented to meeting the educational goals and standards. Second, the schools will be responsive of the student needs unlike it is currently. Third, schools would be forced by the market forces to strive towards offering what appears to be the best so as to attract high enrolments.
Enhancing choice in elementary and secondary education enables the parents to decide where to educate their children and makes the schools located near the choice schools to be innovative and self-governed. Research shows that schools neighboring those schools that have pioneered choice have improved in the management and performance. A public school in East Harlem ...