School District Despotism

School District Despotism is exemplified by the current campus boundary changes being dictated by Plano ISD. Something as important as which campus a student will attend should not be left to school administrations, elected boards, or even registered voters. Parents should be allowed to select campuses for their children.

Furthermore, the amount of money spent per student by school districts (Plano ISD is the highest in this area) would be more effective if parents were allowed to make decisions on the entity (or entities) to provide their children's education. There are other Government Economic Despotism's that take our money, then decide how it will be spent, and often disallow other choices. There some things that are natural limited choices which are necessary, but when there are good options for allowing people to make their own choices, then people should be allowed to make their own choices with the money allocated.

Too often, natural limited choices eventually no longer make sense because of improved technologies, but the programs continue because of vested interests. Examples of this include: school districts, higher education, post office, health insurance, drug prescriptions, health providers, and communications (AT&T was broken up but regulations keep vestiges of this monopoly going). The coming emails will address some of these examples beginning with school districts.

One response to the information above is inserted below:

Hello David, I was just talking to a Plano mom who has a soon to be a junior high student. She told me that a parent can request their school of choice, although it can be difficult to get the school you choose for your child. They are in the middle of the boundary dispute.

My understanding is also that a parent can choose; however, there is a $50 fee, the student can be sent back if there is any discipline required, there is a one year UIL ineligibility (no participation on inter-school competition - e.g. sports, band, choir, debate, etc.), the school of choice does not increase size based on requests for enrollment, and siblings are not automatically allowed to enroll. Therefore, the choice is not exactly free, open, or welcome.

An obvious question is "what is wrong with those restrictions" and the answers are inserted below.

Fee - Requiring a fee makes changing schools out of the reach of lower income families.

Discipline - There is the potential for school leaders to incite discipline problems to remove students with low scores on the TAKS (standardized test used, I believe wrongly, to evaluate teachers, campuses, and districts).

UIL - University Interscholastic League rules prohibit students from participation in inter-school competitions for one year after transferring to prevent schools from recruiting talented students. This one year wait is onerous for students that only have a short time in school, want to enjoy participating, and risk losing the potential benefits of participation including possible scholarships which again impacts low income families the most.

Enlargement - Campuses people desire should be expanded, campuses people do not want to attend should be reduced in size, and campuses that do not serve well should be either shut down, outsourced, and ceded to a different district.

Siblings - Not allowing an entire family to attend the same campus is a burden which again impacts low income students the most.