01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, July 2, 2006

Rhode Island's recently recessed Legislature approved giving private industry a $1-million tax credit for companies that donate to scholarships for private schools.

Ostensibly, this money would increase school choice among low-income families trapped in bad public schools. In a moment we'll turn to images of genuine school-choice systems, because I can think of nothing that would move Rhode Island school reform quite as quickly or effectively as giving all parents real educational options.

But I worry that these corporate credits will actually subsidize well-heeled children who already attend private schools, as has happened with certain voucher initiatives in other states. I worry that this public money will be out of sight of any accountability since private schools purposely use very different tests to thwart comparisons between their kids' achievement and that of the public school kids. I fret that since no money was also allocated to supervise who gets the scholarships, tax money will flow quietly into the private schools in a way that confirms that this initiative was never about school choice for low-income families.

Too bad. Rhode Island parents, especially low-income families, desperately need initiatives designed to engage and empower them. Many schools just want parents to bake cookies and stay out of their way. Serious parental involvement begins with having families shop school options and decide what's best for their kids. Anything else is patronizing and infantilizing. In other words, non-choice systems cultivate passive, disengaged parents from the get-go. Granted, some low-income parents wouldn't exercise choice at first, because it has not been in their culture. But they would in time, if their friends and neighbors have good experiences.

Robust choice systems always attract more middle-class families. As that social class exercises its right to shop, ambitious public schools use attractive programs or educational approaches to pull them in. A strong middle-class presence and advocacy makes urban systems, in particular, stronger as a whole.

For a real choice system, consider Boston. Boston has three different kinds of charter or charter-like schools. The city also has cross-district agreements with several neighboring school systems, allowing city kids to attend suburban schools. And within the district itself, Boston offers a growing menu of viable and ever-improving choices.

Though rife with plenty of remaining challenges, many education-watchers consider Boston to be the best urban school system in the country. Key to this success is that it invests a lot in transportation, almost 10 percent of the overall school budget.

Choice systems that do not offer students transportation -- and they're out there -- do nothing for those who can't afford the bus fee. About half of Boston's transportation budget goes to busing special education, charter, private and parochial students, as required by law. But the rest supports all families' right to school choice.

So Rhode Island's Legislature could have used the tax credits to encourage private industry to help organize a statewide transportation system that would make a real choice system possible. The very frustrated Rhode Island business community might have gone for such an investment because they are not afraid of competition and would welcome bold strategies to improve the emerging work force. (Rhode Island badly needs a cheaper and more efficient statewide student transportation system anyway.)

Or consider the strategy of Edmonton, Canada, which has a remarkably forward-thinking school system. In 1973, it offered every child in the system the right to choose among schools, which by 2006, evolved into a "passport" that allows every family to shop for an appropriate school. Like Boston, Edmonton is liberal with transportation dollars.

Speaking recently in Boston, Angus McBeath, Edmonton's former superintendent, explained, "Parents have four choices for publicly funded education in our city of just over a million people. They can go to the public school district where I work. They can go to a second public system [in a neighboring district, such as Boston offers]. They can go to publicly funded charter schools, and they can also choose to send their children to publicly subsidized private schools. Despite those subsidies, we have, perhaps, only five or six chartered and/or private schools in the city, because the private schools keep asking to join us because we compete effectively in meeting parental expectation."

Edmonton set the goal of meeting parents' expectations. By doing so, the schools got so good that the wealthy did not self-segregate, but joined the overall diversity of the public schools. In the event that a lot of families voted with their feet by leaving a low-functioning school, Edmonton closed it. So on-going improvement is built right into the system.

Rhode Island also has roughly 1 million people. But Rhode Island is divided into 36 districts, and has a number of other local education authorities, including the eleven charters, Davies, the Met and so forth. Except for the local education authorities, no district takes another's students.

This forces urban families to use the largely ineffective urban schools, and gives no options to the families in the tiny districts. According to Information Works!, 13 percent of Rhode Island's children attended private school in 1998, while in 2006 it's up to 15.4. In the meantime, charter participation has grown 1.2 percent and home-schooling has risen 0.5 percent.

So while 100 percent of Edmonton's and Boston's parents have the right to choose, a paltry 17 percent of Rhode Island's are so empowered.

The time seems right for Rhode Island to try what's known as cross-district choice. Our school population grew through the late 1990s, but enrollment is now leveling off as the last surge of the baby-boom echo finishes high school. Throughout the state, many elementary and middle schools have excess capacity, which is to say more seats than they currently need. They could volunteer to accept students from their Rhode Island neighbors, creating a wealth of choices parents don't have now. Receiving schools should be obligated to take students on the same lottery basis as charter schools, unless of course the focus of the school could credibly justify requiring an audition or application.

If Rhode Island developed a real choice system, most schools would quickly become friendlier to parents, more concerned about the kids, and much more creative about helping each child achieve standards in a reasonably pleasant way. Or they would close.

A million dollars invested in creating a passport system would have been a credible investment in school choice. Tax credits for private-school scholarships will help very little and only benefit schools that already know how to focus on families and kids.

Genuine school choice systems are one of the few reforms that have reliably created large-scale positive change. Let the parents shop and choose.

Julia Steiny is a former member of the Providence School Board; she now consults and writes for education, government and private enterprises. She welcomes questions and comments on education. She can be reached by e-mail at juliasteiny@cox.net or c/o The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902