Children are not the property of public schools

Orton Academy, a new public-school program designed specifically for students with dyslexia, opened its doors this fall to about 50 students in Colorado Springs. Why, then, are the local school district and a few state legislators bound and determined to disallow such a school from existing in the first place? The answer relates to territorial monopolies. But first, here is a bit more context.

Only a handful of schools specialize in serving students with dyslexia. Most are private schools and they are spread thin across the country. The closest school serving students K-8th grade that focuses on serving students with dyslexia is likely Havern School, about 70 miles north of Orton. Both schools offer specialized therapies and intense individualization. Orton and Havern are a bit different though. Orton is a public school that is free to students who live in Colorado. Havern is a private school where tuition is $29,000 this year.

Orton does not operate under the direction of any neighboring school districts. It’s a program of several school districts far away, a co-op of public-school districts. Colorado calls these service arrangements BOCES, Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, and they don’t just share teachers, facilities or food programs. Together school districts also create entirely new instructional programs, like Orton. These programs are free from geographic constraints because of a specific clause in Colorado statute that allows BOCES to create programs “at any appropriate location, whether within or without a school district providing money for the facilities.” That means a set of districts on one side of the state could open new programs on the other side of the state, and that disrupts the territorial monopoly of school districts.

BOCES are not new. They have been in Colorado since 1966 and are similar to Educational Service Agencies in 45 states. For example, Texas boasts of the Rural Schools Innovation Zone, a partnership of three rural South Texas school districts that has created six specialized academies that focus on anything from fine arts to medical sciences, from STEM to Navy JROTC.

We know that school boundaries are obstructions to mobility, territorial claims to children based on where they live. If you didn’t know, then check out the this recent study by Bellwether Education Partners, this one by the Urban Institute, this one by Harvard Ph.D. student, and this book by a guy in California. And if you want the three-minute version, see this short video hosted by Derrell Bradford.

But what you might not realize is that some school districts don’t just exclude students from attending via imaginary lines or residential zones. They’ve also typically tried to ensure that every public dollar we spend on education goes to the State Department of Education, which excludes basically any perceived public alternative that might choose to locate within their territorial boundaries. That’s why a Colorado school district sued Orton and its BOCES. And that is why there was an attempt to change the law when their litigation failed to produce the desired outcome. Apparently, according to some school districts, district boundaries represent sovereign territory that should not be challenged by students or by other schools. School boundaries means property rights, in their view, where the property is students along with all the funding associated with them.

The problem with that view is children are not property, and they are certainly not the property of public schools. Children are people. No school district should have the right to a particular child or group of children. Colorado school districts are creating new programs for students that truly need them, and children should be able to access programs that meet their unique needs no matter who provides the service. It would be a shame to lose the shared creativity, collaboration and innovation of public-school districts due to entrenched monopolistic interests, especially when that creativity benefits children.