Guest Post by John Stossel
At least the pandemic had a silver lining.
It taught parents that there are better alternatives to government schools.
When COVID hit, bureaucrats in control were eager to close schools. Many closed them if just one child tested positive, even though COVID is little threat to kids.
Union teachers seemed eager to be paid not to work. Los Angeles teachers secured a contract that said they will “not be required to teach classes using live video conferencing,” and won’t be required to “provide instruction more than four hours a day.” Nice work if you can get it.
More than a million parents chose to leave the government system. They spent their own money to educate their children in private and religious schools.
Others tried home schooling.
Many had been skeptical but now discovered that their kids learned more, and their family life was enriched by teaching at home. The education establishment sneers at home schooling, but home-schooled students, even though they are more likely to be poor, score 30% higher on SAT tests. They also do better in college, and they are less likely to drink or do drugs.
Finally, even within government systems, school choice grew.
Kansas and Missouri expanded access to charter schools.
Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Iowa, South Dakota, Utah and Tennessee expanded Education Savings Accounts, which help parents try private schools.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed “the most expansive school choice legislation in the nation.” It gives money to families that families can spend on private school, home schooling, micro schools, tutoring or any other educational service that meets the needs of kids. Any kid can qualify. The state simply gives the family what they would have spent in the public school (up to $7,000). That’s much more generous and simpler than other states choice plans.
In San Francisco, voters recalled three school board members. Apparently voters did not like that they kept public schools closed and, instead of figuring out how to reopen, obsessed over renaming schools called Washington or Lincoln.
In Virginia, voters rejected governor Terry McAuliffe after he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” His opponent, Glenn Youngkin said, “Parents should be in charge of their kids’ education.” Youngkin won.
“For far too long in K-12 education, the only special interest group has been the teachers unions,” wrote the Reason Foundation’s Corey DeAngelis in The Wall Street Journal. “Now, there’s a new interest group — parents. They are never going to unsee what they saw in 2020 and 2021, and they’re going to fight to make sure they never feel powerless when it comes to their children’s education again.”
Of course, union leaders hate the choice movement. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten calls it racist. “The real ‘pioneers’ of private school choice were the white politicians who resisted school integration,” she wrote. Today’s choice programs are “polite cousins of segregation.”
But that’s nonsense.
“Don’t tell me school choice is racist!” says Denisha Merriweather, founder of the new group Black Minds Matter. “(Choice opponents) are implying that parents, especially lower-income, black parents, should stay trapped in public schools that have failed their children for decades … We need a new system … empowered by parents.”
School choice increases diversity, adds Liv Finne of the Washington Policy Center’s Center for Education. “Modern-day school vouchers lead to more ethnic and racial integration in the schools, not less.”
One poll showed that 74% of African Americans and 71% of Latinos support school choice.
Choice opponents are mostly unions, establishment Democrats and frightened suburban Republicans.
But now lots of innovation has begun.
One example: Stop Foundation 4 Education gives awards to educational innovators. Its $10 million will go to nonprofits, entrepreneurs and community organizations that provide more educational options. Recipients include Rock by Rock, an education software company, and STEMuli, a game-based learning company.
School choice is good for everybody but unions, socialist bureaucrats and the tired education establishment.
It’s one good thing accidently created by the pandemic.
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Every penny the government has to hand out was first stolen from a taxpayer. No money is ever handed out without strings. So-called choice simply means continuing the theft while now handing that money to a private business. If not at the start, eventually the money will come with requirements. Those might include accepting any and every student that applies, teaching CRT, allowing boys to shower with girls and play on their teams, or far, far worse. Those who wish to retain exclusivity will raise their tuition the amount of the voucher. Horrible business owners will start up horrible schools to exploit the new easy money. ONLY a fully competitive market of educational options, free of ALL government involvement, including charity schools, business-sponsored schools, private voluntary scholarships, and other funding supportive mechanisms, can ever hope to meet the needs of parent, stude, and society. Parents will only begin taking real responsibility when they are forced to. Obviously any and all exits from the day prison system that are already happening are great and should be promoted.
Sad to say but, I am sure you’re correct. Government fucks everything up.
The Head Start Program? So ‘parents’ can get something to eat. Too. Before they go to their bar/Dealer/Local Pawnshop/ doctor-n-pharmacist, etc.
BABY Sitters. All the way to the ‘doctorate’ level.
“It’s one good thing accidently created by the pandemic.”
The Name is hauntingly familiar.
https://theurbanengine.com/blog//mertons-unintended-consequences-theory
As I’ve said before: Teachers Unions are Communist Covens.
still even better would be to get the government out of the education business entirely. every family makes its own arrangements with its own means. Some want to get together and form their own school? great. some want to homeschool by themselves? great. some want to homeschool cooperatively with others? great. some want to pay tuition to a private school? great. some want to completely ignore their kids? gee, thats exactly what we’re getting from the system now, at enormous expense! so for everyone who gives a damn, the conditions will improve. for those who currently dont give a damn anyway, conditions will remain about the same, but the taxes will be lower for everyone.
the only people who would really lose would be the parasites sucking down public money with no accountability!
but any scheme that continues to keep the government in the loop, taxing people and then farming money back out for ‘supporting’ education, is still broken, even if it’s slightly less so. get the government out of the education business ENTIRELY.
School choice is still school.
Schools in their current form have to go away.
Teaching your children is like preparing your own meals- it’s always better than anything you can get anywhere else. It includes the one ingredient that no educator, regardless of how many degrees they may possess can ever give a child- love.
A person who loves their children will raise them up prepared for everything that they will encounter in life. The most essential lesson you can teach isn’t a specific set of facts, dates, equations or names, but curiosity. A person with a genuine interest in how the world works, how things operate, what motivates, excites or compels them will discover the answers to all of their questions simply by desiring to know the answers. That’s your only mission- to fill them with a love for learning that lasts as long as they live.
You must be one of the very small percentage that view your children as gifts and responsibilities. Too many seem to view them as inconveniences and burdens.
I like how the image has a gook in it.