Would you choose a school full of bullies?
points out how schools that don鈥檛 address bullying might lose federal funding from the Department of Education. I think it鈥檚 good that people are recognizing the importance of incentives here, but I think it鈥檚 unfortunate that people are looking for top-down solutions. I鈥檓 not sure how effective a threat of lost federal funding will be. It will probably result in a lot of programs and initiatives, but I don鈥檛 know that it will lead to a serious reduction in bullying.
If there鈥檚 a solution, it鈥檚 competition. This would make schools accountable to those to whom they should be accountable: the parents and students they are supposed to serve. I predict that in a totally private market for education, schools that have reputations for being places where students are bullied for any reason will lose a lot of business and a lot of community support.
and I wrote last summer in which we take on the issue of school competition. We summarize a little bit of the research on charter schools, vouchers, and educational outcomes. In light of the controversy over bullying, a natural extension would be to look at how the introduction of competition of virtually any kind affects discipline problems, bullying, and harassment.
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