Essay on School choice options

School choice options provide students and their parents with an opportunity to choose the school students are willing or can attend. In actuality, students and their parents have such choice options as public schools, charter schools, private schools, or home education. However, the private school option and home education is not affordable for a large part of students, who have a few options to choose from public schools alone. At the same time, existing school choice option allows to focus financial resources on public schools solely, while students and parents, who can afford learning in private schools or home education can fund their education without the involvement of public funds. The option parents and students choose may influence the quality of students’ education but, on the other hand, opens opportunities for public funding of the public education which, otherwise, would be unaffordable for all students.

Discussion 2

Public schools are supported by district, state and federal government agencies. These agencies provide public schools with financial support and guidance which regulates policies of schools. At the same time, at the local level, district agencies play a particularly important part because the allocation of resources and public funding of schools depends above all on district authorities. In addition, district authorities are closer to local communities. More important, they understand better local specificities and needs of local schools. Therefore, district agencies can help public schools to meet needs of local communities and students. However, the most important issue that puts district agencies in an advantageous position compared to government and state agencies is the allocation of financial resources since it is district agencies that direct public funds of the local community to fund public education and their share in the funding of the public schools is very significant.