The Patriot Post® · School Choice Popularity Expands
Given the choice between a bad product and a good product, most folks will choose the good. Furthermore, as time goes by, that bad product will either be eliminated as everyone chooses the superior product, or it will become a better product in order to compete with the good product. This principle is basic supply-and-demand economics.
Unfortunately, this fundamental free market principle has not been applied to America’s education system. The result is an average product at best.
The dismal state of America’s public education system is most often blamed on a lack of funding. Yet the United States spends more per student on K-12 education than nearly every other country.
Thankfully, and largely due to our schools’ mishandling of the COVID pandemic, parents have become increasingly informed about what their children were being taught or not being taught. This realization has helped to further the school choice movement.
Ironically, but not surprisingly, the most ardent opponents of school choice are the teachers unions. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has said of those advocating for school choice, “They have not one thing that they offer as a solution other than privatizing or voucherizing schools, which is about undermining democracy and undermining civil discourse and undermining pluralism because 90% of our kids go to public schools still. They just divide. Divide. Divide. Divide.”
Despite Weingarten’s dismissive rhetoric, the school choice movement has been spreading rapidly. In fact, it has increasingly become a platform issue for Republicans, and anti-school choice incumbents have found themselves losing primary elections.
In Missouri, six pro-school choice candidates won their primaries. In Tennessee, after Governor Bill Lee’s education freedom bill was defeated in the state legislature, 12 of the 15 pro-school choice candidates he endorsed won their primaries. In Texas, six lawmakers who voted against school choice lost their primary elections to pro-school choice candidates. In Idaho, 15 incumbents lost their primaries. According to the Lewiston Tribune, “Several lawmakers who had been staunchly against … school choice proposals were defeated in their primaries, including the House Education Committee Chair Julie Yamamoto, R-Caldwell.” In Kentucky, two Republican lawmakers backed by the teachers unions were defeated.
Thus far, 12 states have enacted some degree of school choice law over the last three years. There are 13 other Republican-controlled states that have the opportunity to look out for parents and their children’s education by enacting pro-school choice legislation.
What is the likely result of these efforts? Higher education standards and better educational opportunities for children from all socioeconomic backgrounds. In fact, offering greater school choice is one of the best and most practical ways to fight against the historical impact of racial segregation. Democrats don’t want you to know that.