No Longer the Only Game in Town: Helping Traditional Public Schools Compete

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September 2006
Christine Campbell, Michael DeArmond, Kacey Guin, Deborah Warnock

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This report from the Doing School Choice Right initiative reveals how two markedly different school districts, Milwaukee and Dayton, are confronting the challenges of competition. No Longer the Only Game in Town: Helping Traditional Public Schools Compete explores how the two districts affected by and respond to the pressures of school choice.

The competition for students in these cities is real: nearly 25% of students in Milwaukee and almost 30% in Dayton use public dollars to attend schools outside the traditional system. Unlike districts with growing enrollments that can use choice as a pressure valve, Milwaukee and Dayton have experienced declining enrollments for years.

According to the report: "When Milwaukee and Dayton district officials were asked to offer advice on how other districts could help traditional schools compete, they had a simple message: public schools need to wake up to reality. 'The district, as a whole,' said a top Milwaukee official, 'needs to be more conscious that you're operating in a market economy.'"

"Whether districts improve under competition, or are brought down by it, depends at least in part on their own response," says co-author Michael DeArmond.

The study offers concrete advice to districts facing similar pressures and explores the barriers that can act as impediments to change. The report concludes with specific guidelines for what districts and individual schools, state policymakers, and philanthropies can do to help traditional public schools adapt successfully to the emerging competitive environment.