Thursday, October 2, 2008

Districts fail to notify parents of choices

[Guest post by OCPA intern Emily Solomon]

A recent article in the Tulsa World exposed the fact that schools in 19 Oklahoma districts failed to notify parents that their children’s school was on the Needs Improvement list, meaning the schools failed to meet No Child Left Behind test benchmarks. It is required by law that schools not only notify parents of their status on the Needs Improvement list, but also that they allow transfers within the district (if applicable) and provide bus transportation for participating students.

It's sad that students continue to go to underperforming schools because someone dropped the administrative ball. But it's even worse that parents didn't get to choose where to send their kids in the first place. It's likely that many of them knew the schools weren't the best, but couldn't afford to move or send their children to a private school. Wouldn't it be great if we had some kind of voucher or tax credit system to help parents make the best choices for their kids?

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