Many teachers prefer choice schools over public campuses

Insight on the News, July 27, 1998 by Deroy Murdock

If you ask those involved, school choice works. Sixty-three percent of parents with children in Cleveland's voucher program, for instance, are very satisfied with the academic quality of their kids' private schools, according to a 1997 Harvard survey. Students seem happy too. The Edison Project, a company that manages public and charter schools, sees its pupil attendance rate at 94 percent and turnover below 10 percent -- levels better than on most public campuses.

But what about teachers? Evidence mounts that those in America's choice schools enjoy their jobs and prefer such schools to public campuses. For reformers, these teachers seem like natural allies in the struggle against the unions, bureaucrats and politicians who impede school choice.

Charter-school teachers seem especially content. Last year, the Hudson Institute surveyed 521 teachers at 36 charter schools. Among its findings: 93.2 percent of those surveyed were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their schools' educational philosophies, and 94.4 percent were similarly pleased with their fellow teachers.

Many teachers also have voted on school choice with their children's feet. And in Los Angeles, for example, 18.9 percent of public-school teachers send their children to private schools. This also occurs in major cities with chaotic schools, such as New York (21.4 percent), Boston (24.4 percent) and Miami (35.4 percent). Only 13.1 percent of the general public has children in private classrooms.

Compensation quickly enters any story on teachers and school choice. But despite the claims of teachers' unions, higher pay doesn't always produce broader smiles.

Despite earning 52 percent more money on average than their counterparts in private schools, public-school teachers are only one-third as likely to be highly satisfied in their profession, says Paul Steidler of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution in Arlington, Va. According to a July 1996 U.S. Education Department report, 36.2 percent of private-school teachers were highly satisfied at work, while only 11.2 percent of public-school teachers could say the same.

School reform also could improve teachers' incomes. Were public schools as efficient as private schools, teacher pay could increase substantially, Steidler says. If public schools could match the 46 cents per dollar that private schools spend on teacher pay, Steidler estimates, average public instructors' salaries would increase from $38,509 per year to $54,421.

Statistics and salaries only tell part of the stow. Surveys cannot capture the enthusiasm choice teachers display.

After three years in the Prince George's County, Md., public schools, Christina Foster joined Community Day Charter School in Lawrence, Mass. It educates 196 students from kindergarten through sixth grade. Smaller classes are among the most dramatic changes she's witnessed. In Maryland, Foster taught 33 first-graders without help. Now, she and a full-time assistant teach 22 pupils. "We decided the best way to spend our money was to get assistants for all our teachers," Foster says. She adds that "the teachers and administrators reached this decision quickly. In the charter schools, you don't have to put everything through a school board and all that bureaucracy."

Foster also sees fewer disciplinary headaches. "With small class size, there's less time off-task and less opportunities for things to happen," she says. "I'm not saying the children are perfect in every way, but it's a lot easier to handle things."

Just two miles from where Los Angeles Police Department officers beat Rodney King, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center is helping kids stay in school and out of trouble. This charter school serves 1,140 prekindergarten to fifth-grade students. They are 95 percent Hispanic, 5 percent black and 99.4 percent eligible for federal school lunches.

"I personally feel I have more freedom. I feel more empowered. I feel more in control," says first-grade teacher Rebecca Camacho. She began in the Los Angeles public schools in 1989 and was at Vaughn when it switched from public to charter status in 1993. Since then, her classes have shrunk from 32 students to 20. Teachers do much of the administrative work and save the school money. Last June, they paid themselves 3 percent more than what their counterparts earned in the city's public-school system.

Camacho misses her public-school colleagues and finds the extra hours tiring. But even here she sees a bright side. "It's like people who work at a factory who own the factory," she says. "You really work harder because you have a vested interest. You want it to work, so you're going to put a lime extra into it"

New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax; Va., and a correspondent with Headway magazine from which this is adapted.