What if the “stuff” we’ve been told about no schools of choice in rural America is wrong?
Opponents of education choice often make two arguments about its effect on rural areas:
(1) Education choice will not help in rural areas because there are few or no alternatives to the district school system, and
(2) education choice will destroy the district school system because so many students will leave for alternative options.
These two claims are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be true, but they can both be—and indeed are—false.
Jason Bedrick and Matthew Ladner, in “Rustic Renaissance: Education Choice in Rural America” (Layout edited for readability)
To be sure, the false arguments mentioned by Bedrick and Ladner above are heard, frequently, in Kentucky as the discussion about school choice here continues. But, is either argument true?
Certainly, Bedrick and Ladner make it clear in their January 9, 2023 report about “Rustic Renaissance: Education Choice in Rural America” that they don’t believe either argument is correct. And, the authors offer some interesting data to support their claims.
I think that Chart 1 in their report, reproduced below, offers enough information to make the point.
Chart 1
This chart breaks down the proportions of students attending different types of schools by four different groupings for settings in cities, in suburbia, in towns and finally in rural areas. The source of the data used to create the chart is a table in the annually released Digest of Education Statistics, which is a product of the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.
The types of schools include:
Public schools where students are assigned by local school board policies,
Public schools that parents have been able to choose, such as charter schools and magnets,
Private schools, and
Homeschools.
The proportion of the enrollments listed that include school choice options include chosen public, private and homeschooling. As shown in Chart 2, those percentages are interesting – even unexpected.
Chart 2
Across the nation, over 25% of students in rural areas are attending schools of choice.
Of course, that isn’t currently the situation in Kentucky because we really don’t have any public schools of choice (not even one charter school), and the state currently offers no assistance to parents who want to educate their child with a non-public school option.
But, even if we just focus in on the nationwide percentages of rural students who attend private and homeschool options, 14.8% of those students are using such options.
Bedrick and Ladner make another interesting point:
“About seven in 10 rural families live within 10 miles of a private elementary school, compared to about nine in 10 students nationwide.”
So, there might be more possibilities for choice in Kentucky than you think, though right now it’s only available to parents with means. Our legislature should change that. Bedrick and Ladner point out that about 55% of public school parents are extremely well satisfied with their child’s school, but among private school parents, the extremely well satisfied percentage is 79%. Kentucky’s parents should enjoy similar chances for satisfaction.