School Choice: Symbolic Step or Sweeping Reform? : Education: New state laws are praised as giving parents more control. Critics say little will change.

All Sam Bernal wanted to do was enroll his daughter, an aspiring interior decorator, in a high school that offered more courses to develop her artistic skills.

But the San Pedro father soon found that his address locked him into the Los Angeles Unified School District. It took nearly three months of paperwork and a trial-like hearing in front of a panel of educators before his daughter was awarded a permit to attend Torrance High School.

“I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone,” Bernal said. “I thought as a parent I should have the right to send my kid to any school. . . . I thought this was the land of the free. If we would have been able to choose where our kid goes to school in the first place, life would have been much easier for everyone.”

Soon, parents like Bernal may have more options when it comes to selecting public schools, a decision that has long been dictated by rigid attendance boundaries.

Now, a public school draws its students from the surrounding neighborhood, with exceptions made mainly to accommodate day-care needs and to keep a child close to where a parent works.

Under two laws that take effect Jan. 1, parents will be able to select any school within their home district that has space for their child, and local school boards can decide whether to open enrollment to students from other districts.

The laws embrace an increasingly popular concept that educators call “school choice.” Proponents of the laws say they represent a broad departure from tradition in California and hail their adoption as a major public education reform. But others contend that the laws have so many restrictions that the average parent will find little has really changed.

“This is not a brand new day dawning,” said Theodore R. Mitchell, dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education. “The bills are important in that they have put into state law real choice policy for the first time in California. . . . But I would say the effects are more symbolic.”

Assemblyman Charles R. Quackenbush (R-San Jose), who drafted the bill permitting transfers between districts, called the law “a rather profound new reform for public education. . . . No longer will students be the property of school districts, but the responsibility of parents who now have the authority to send their child to any public school.”

But the timing of the legislation may have more to do with politics than with reform.

Supporters hope that the new laws will take the punch out of Proposition 174, the voucher initiative on the November ballot, which would offer parents tax-supported scholarships worth about $2,600 to help pay for private school tuition. The constitutional amendment also calls for open enrollment in all public schools.

Now, voucher opponents argue, the debate over the initiative can focus solely on whether tax dollars should be used to support private education.

“The only real compelling part of this scheme was the public school choice part. Now it is no longer an issue,” said Rick Manter, campaign manager of the Committee to Educate Against Vouchers. “This drives the stake through the heart of the monster.”

Quackenbush and Assemblywoman Dede Alpert (D-Coronado), who authored the measure allowing intradistrict transfers, said the unexpected placement of the voucher initiative on the fall ballot prompted swift passage of their bills.

“This was an opportunity to show that it’s not choice we object to, it’s the tax-financed vouchers for private schools we object to,” Alpert said.

Gov. Pete Wilson signed the measures July 20, calling them “reforms that were unimaginable just a year or two ago.”

Quackenbush tried for five years to pass similar legislation but was stymied by strong opposition from the powerful California Teachers Assn., which only recently lifted its objections. The organization strongly opposes vouchers and is expected to raise millions for the campaign to defeat Proposition 174.

Ralph Flynn, CTA executive director, denied that his organization dropped opposition to the choice laws to deal a blow to the voucher campaign.

“The reality is we have been progressively moving in the direction of these bills,” Flynn said.

Supporters of Proposition 174, called the Parental Choice in Education Amendment, said the new laws are flawed because they restrict the number of students who can leave a district, severely limiting parental choice.

“This is not choice, it’s bait and switch,” said Sean Walsh, spokesman for the Yes on 174 campaign. “The reason you are seeing choice in some form now is that politicians are reacting to us. They see this upswell and they have to give themselves some kind of cover.”

He predicts that the new laws will have little impact on the public debate over the initiative. “Nearly 1 million people signed the petition on the ballot,” he said. “You can’t ignore” its popularity.

Nationally, California joins at least 13 states--including Minnesota, Massachusetts and Arkansas--that have made some form of open enrollment the law. A widely cited 1992 study by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching showed that only a fraction of parents--less than 2%--exercised their right to switch schools in states that allow open enrollment.

However, because the programs are all relatively new, participation may not yet reflect the level of interest, the Carnegie report said. Lack of classroom space and desegregation laws also restrict participation.

The study concluded that although the idea of open enrollment is appealing, in practice parents prefer to keep their children at schools close to home.

Statewide school choice laws are least likely to help disadvantaged children, according to Amy Stuart Wells, an assistant education professor at UCLA and author of an upcoming book that examines the issue nationally.

“People who have more resources are going to be able to get their children in the schools they want,” Wells said. “They have transportation and information.”

The new California laws go far to protect local school districts, which will receive no new money to implement choice plans.

Under the Quackenbush bill, districts with more than 50,000 students may limit student transfers to 1% of their enrollment. Districts with fewer than 50,000 pupils may limit transfers to 3%. The law requires county and local boards of education to begin publicizing the transfer policy by Jan. 1, but students would not enter their new schools until fall, 1995.

The Alpert bill mandates that school districts open enrollment within their boundaries, allowing parents to chose any school that has space. Districts must have their plan ready by July 1, 1994.

The laws do not require school districts to spend more money to provide transportation for transfer students, although existing services must be made available to them. While schools cannot deny entrance to students with special needs, they are not required to spend more money to assist them. Under both laws, transfers can be denied if they upset a voluntary or court-ordered desegregation plan.

Both laws give priority to students who live within the desired district or school boundaries. All transfer students must be selected on a random basis, without regard to academic or athletic skills.

The CTA and other past opponents of the measures pushed heavily for these protections and had argued that earlier versions would have led to biased selection processes, the unraveling of delicate racial and ethnic balances, and uncontrolled flight from schools that could hurt a district financially.

In California, school districts are funded primarily by the state, which allocates money on a per-pupil basis. Districts would lose or gain about $5,200 per transferring student.

No one is predicting that massive numbers of parents will move their children to different schools because of the new laws. State education authorities note that the vast majority of California’s approximately 1,000 school districts have in place some form of open enrollment.

Magnet schools and other special programs have reduced the importance of school boundaries in many districts. Also, exceptions can be made when a parent works or has day-care services in another area.

In the 640,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District, officials say the laws will have little impact because of caps on student departures and integration policies. The district now allows transfers to any school that has space and where a move would not upset desegregation goals.

One parent, Jim Graf of La Canada Flintridge, is hopeful that the laws will at last enable him to end his neighborhood’s battle to secede from the Glendale Unified School District and join the La Canada Flintridge school system.

“I’ve been struggling to have choice for several years. This is the right bill at the right time,” Graf said.

Some educators are hopeful that the laws will lead to better public schools by injecting a dose of competition into their operations--a hotly debated notion. Good schools will attract more students and prosper because they will receive more state funding, the argument goes, while bad schools will lose students and be forced to improve to survive.

“When the money starts drying up in a district, they are going to have to wake up and smell the coffee,” Quackenbush said.

CTA’s Flynn called competition an “absolutely phony” argument and one that is not supported by the statewide teachers organization.

Said Wells of UCLA: “With competition, you have winners and losers. Yes, some kids will gain. But the kids who don’t have the resources, the parents who don’t understand the information, they are the losers.”

Expanding School Choice

Two laws that take effect Jan. 1 will expand parents’ ability to choose their child’s public school. Here is a summary of current practice and the new laws.

CURRENT LAW

* Local school districts have broad authority to decide which public school a student attends. For the most part, parents must seek permission from local school boards to transfer their child to another school or district. State law permits school transfers so that a child can be close to a parent’s work or day-care center. Many districts throughout the state also have open enrollment agreements.

NEW LAWS

* AB 19, authored by Assemblyman Charles W. Quackenbush (R-San Jose), allows parents to transfer their children to another school district for any reason. Local school boards have the authority to decide whether to accept transfers. The number of open spaces must be made public. Districts with more than 50,000 students may limit the number of students who leave to 1% of their enrollment; districts with fewer than 50,000 may limit transfers to 3%.

The law requires a parent information campaign by the county Board of Education to begin by Jan. 1. The deadline for the first transfer applications is Jan. 1, 1995. Students will enter their new schools in fall, 1995. The law will be in effect for five years, at which time the Legislature will review it.

* AB 1114, authored by Assemblywoman Dede Alpert (D-Coronado), requires districts to allow parents to transfer students to any school within their home district that has space. School districts must set up a system to inform parents of their open enrollment plan.

* Both laws require that first priority be given to students who live within the district or neighborhood school boundaries. Transfer students must be selected on a random basis. Transfers cannot be based on academic or athletic talent. Entrance may be denied if it upsets racial or ethnic balance of the district or school.