Anyone for School Choice Today?

 Anyone for School Choice Today?

The View from the Middle

 

Back in the 1980’s Al Shanker, then President of the United Federation of Teachers union, let the cat out of the bag when he famously said, “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”  This Freudian Slip revealed the ugly truth that the teachers’ unions didn’t give a flip about our kids.  All of the teachers’ unions have tried to hide this reality from that day forward, but it is times like this when we can all see the truth in that statement and sentiment.

Throughout this pandemic the teachers’ unions have ignored the science (which they say they love) that children don’t acquire this disease very well, and they don’t transmit it very well.  If they do get Covid, their symptoms are usually mild and they rarely succumb to it.  In fact, the CDC’s data shows that children under the age of 20 have a 99.998% likelihood of surviving Covid-19 IF they are infected.  Despite all of the actual scientific evidence that children and even teachers are safer in school than out, the teachers’ unions have held our country and our children hostage and used this health crisis to advance their own interests at the expense of our kids.  Remember Rahm Emanuel’s (Obama’s first Chief of Staff) famous Freudian slip when he admitted that it was a Democrat Party strategy to, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”  

And the real problem is that American parents have no choice in this matter.  They must cave to the union demands or watch their children suffer the academic, emotional and even physical consequences of remote learning.  The fact is, 90% of American families send their children to public (government) schools.  If this were a business, it would be considered a monopoly.  Parents really don’t have a choice.

But private schools have been completely open for months with virtually zero consequences reported.  So, why don’t more parents send their children to private schools?  The number one reason given by parents is the cost of tuition.  Most people don’t like the idea of paying for one education for their kids through their taxes and then paying for another one through private school tuition.  

It is interesting, however, to look at who is more likely to send their children to private schools.  Public school teachers, for example, are twice as likely to send their children to private schools.  Let that fact sink in, and then consider the fact that 40% of our members of Congress send their children to private schools.  That’s four times the rate of an average family in the US.  They do it because they have options.  Primarily, these people have the financial resources that allow them to overcome that #1 barrier to pulling their kids out of the public school prison system, which is COST.

So, how could we allow everyone in America to have the same options, choices, opportunities that our political leaders have?  Vouchers!!  The average cost of a K through 12 education in the United States is $11,392 per year.  In Arkansas, where I live it is $9,694.  Interestingly, the highest cost of a public school education is $19,396, and that is in Washington DC.  I wonder why that is?  According to Forbes magazine, the average cost of a private school education in this country is $11,450, only a $58 per year difference from the public schools. according to Forbes magazine.  And the Catholic school average cost is only $7,350.  Wow, that’s actually quite the bargain.

In effect, our government gives this money to school buildings so that “we the people” can go those buildings and get a free education.  It isn’t “free” of course, because the government has NO money.  They simply take the money for these “free” educations out of our paychecks every month.  What if, however, we sent this money to parents in the form of a voucher that can only be used for education and allow them to choose the “building” to which they would send their children?  This would remove the monetary barrier that traps many families in the public school system and allow them the same choices that our members of Congress have.  Why shouldn’t every family in America have the same choice when it comes to education that our member of Congress and our Presidents have had.

Not only would this give every family in America real choice in education for their children, but it would make the public schools compete for students.  Public schools would either improve or die, and some should die.  The government school casualties, however, would be replaced by better schools – charter, private or public.  It really doesn’t matter, as long as they are better.

In closing, I need to point out that I have no skin in this game at all.  My children are out of college, but my wife and I had the luxury (the finances) to send both of our children to private schools for most of their education.  I would just like every family in America to have the same choices we had all those years ago.  If we had a voucher system this year, I’m guessing that many families would have made the leap out of the public school monopoly system and “chose” to send their children to schools that were actually open and cared about the children.  What do you think?