No Child Left Behind contains a "transfer provision" that allows parents to move their children out of failing schools and into better ones within their district. Yet, nationwide, less than 2 percent of eligible students have taken advantage of the transfer policy. Why?
The most obvious answer is that low-performing districts tend to have multiple low-performing schools, so transferring is far from a cure-all. In those cases, inter-district transfers would be a far more attractive option. But there are also bureaucratic hurdles. For example, The Washington Post explained yesterday that in D.C., notices of the right to transfer schools are mailed out only three weeks before the academic year begins. By that time, spots in the best public charters have long since been doled out to more aggressive families. What's more, students in over 80 failing schools are given less than a dozen (marginally) more successful schools to choose from, some of which do not offer services for special needs children. The result? Frustration.
In other edu news, Ezra has two must-reads today.
--Dana Goldstein
