School choice would help solve problem of over- and under-crowded Henderson high schools
Liberty and Coronado High Schools are both in Henderson and are less than five miles from each other. Liberty is under-populated by 768 students and Coronado has 512 students too many.
Now, if school systems operated in a free-market system, this wouldn't be a big deal. If one restaurant is too busy, you can go to the one down the street. Or if you want to wait, you can. But it's your choice.
If a movie theater is too crowded, you can go to a different one. Or you can choose a different form of entertainment. It's your choice.
In a free market, people are able to make the decisions they believe would benefit them the most.
In our monopolistic public school system, however, students are told where to go to school and potentially, in Henderson, when to switch schools. From the Las Vegas Review-Journal article linked above:
A zoning change might seem like an obvious solution, but the district faces opposition from current Coronado students and their families who don't want to move to a new school.
School officials said they couldn't start the zoning change with just next year's incoming freshmen, because the other grades still would be imbalanced.
None of 10 students recently interviewed in front of Coronado was willing to attend Liberty instead.
A different compromise is in the works that includes choices for students.
A second part of the proposal would give all Coronado students the choice of attending Liberty next year. If more students elected to leave, fewer students from Anthem Heights and Madeira Canyon would have to go to Liberty, Baldwin said.
Dattoli said she anticipated the proposal might be appealing, because students would have more opportunities to play sports and participate in activities at Liberty.
Allowing students and their parents to choose for themselves? Exactly right. Now if only every parent in Nevada had that choice.
Oh, but they could! And it would save the state money, too.
