What do New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Denver have in common? According to a new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute they’re all knocking it out of the park when it comes to school choice.
The report, America’s Best (and Worst) Cities for School Choice, reviews 30 cities, analyzing and ranking them based on three factors: political support for school choice; policy environment, including the strength of state charter laws; and the quantity and quality of choice options, including charter schools, private schools, and magnet schools. The report takes into account more than 100 data points, and also includes interviews with local education officials and reform advocates to get a good feel for conditions on the ground. New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Denver rank in the first three spots, with each city topping the rankings in one of the three categories: “Denver ranks first for political support, thanks in part to the unusually strong backing that school choice receives from the local superintendent and school board…. New Orleans ranks first on policy environment, reflecting its strong charter law, flexible teacher policies, and choice-friendly transportation (among other strengths)…. Finally, with a healthy supply of high-quality charter schools and popular voucher and open enrollment programs, Washington, D.C. ranks first on quantity and quality.” Meanwhile, Indianapolis, which slots in at #4 overall, is the only city that ranks in the top 10 across all three categories. And New York City, which had previously been a choice champion under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is now suffering what the report calls “the de Blasio effect”—an anti-choice political climate that is sapping the city’s reform energy. In addition to providing profiles of every city included in the report, the authors offer recommendations for how cities can become more choice-friendly. Among them:
Provide charter schools with equitable resources, including equitable facilities and funding;
Expand public school choice by establishing more robust open enrollment programs and increasing the number of magnet and career and technical education (CTE) schools;
Make choice more user-friendly for parents by providing them with more and better information, incorporating magnet and charter schools into common application systems, offering equitable transportation to all types of schools of choice, and ensuring that charter school and homeschooled students have access to district extracurricular activities; and
Keep mobilizing support for choice by rallying external stakeholders to put pressure on state and local officials to go further, faster.
The report is rich on data and context for policymakers, choice supporters, and parents who want to turn their own hometown into one of America’s choice-friendliest cities.
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