School choice

Teachers’ unions have donated millions upon millions over the years almost exclusively to Democratic candidates and left-wing organizations. So it’s no wonder Dems, realizing their cash cow could be on the verge of drying up, are losing their minds over President Trump signing an executive order yesterday to begin eradicating the Department of Education. If Americans get a real taste of school choice (Trump still needs a Congressional vote to end the agency), the left knows there will be no going back. Senator Chuck Schumer called the order “one of the most destructive and devastating steps Donald Trump has ever taken.

I hated going to school so much as a kid that to this day, the sight of Back to School! signs printed in cutesy kiddy font on glowing school-bus yellow that fill stores every August strikes me with dread. I want to punch them. My elementary school years were fine; I attended a teeny-tiny Catholic school where I think most of the dedicated teachers qualified for food stamps. I knew my classmates so well that they were essentially extended siblings (and a couple of them still are). I graduated first in my class (out of ten) and was star of the pathetic basketball team. High school was a Catholic school too, but insular and snooty. I was an outsider there, from “over the mountain.” I wasn’t bullied or anything, but no matter what, I always felt like I was imprisoned.

Only occasionally in American history does an issue surface that challenges not only the values of an established political party but the party’s ability to function. If any such issue has emerged in our own time, it's clearly school choice. The evolution of such a diverse educational marketplace — private schooling, homeschooling and tutoring, among other options — will severely reduce the Democratic Party’s election workforce, squeeze its finances and even discredit its basic philosophy. Consider first the workforce. If nothing else, the widespread subsidy of K-12 grade schooling in venues not run by teachers' unions would deplete the enormous army of campaign workers that Democrats have come to depend upon during every election cycle.

According to the mainstream media, there’s a national teacher shortage, though ongoing reports of this “catastrophic” phenomenon have left me skeptical. On one hand, there does seem to be a shortage of almost every type of worker these days, yet on the other, public school teaching has traditionally been a comfortable sort of job, offering a pretty predictable schedule, plenty of time off, benefits, and the rewarding opportunity to improve children’s lives. Where I live, teaching is considered a high-class career. It has its fair share of challenges, no doubt, but it's also not a sector where I would expect to see a shortfall of employees.

A new Arizona law which funds all the state’s K-12th grade children to attend a school of their family’s choosing, public or private, has been widely hailed as a landmark education reform, although evidence suggests the benefits will go far beyond academics. Studies by the Manhattan Institute, New Jersey’s E3, and Connecticut’s Yankee Institute all show that subsidizing students to use alternative placements would save any state millions each year. But perhaps the most unexpected promise of universal school choice is the impact it would have on area real estate markets, simultaneously lowering the cost of what families must pay for a desirable home, improving the value of distressed areas, and equalizing the quality of life between rich and poor communities.

There’s been a lot of professed outrage lately over woke school boards. According to Republican candidates for office, they're infiltrating children’s curricula with critical race theory, recruiting drag queens to read at story hour for pre-schoolers, and engaging in other forms of — shall we say — “incompetence.” But the real heroes pushing back against left-wing ideologies in government schools are the parents, when it ought to be lawmakers. Outspoken parents in New Jersey made headlines when they protested their school district removing holiday names from the school calendar. Voters in San Francisco — yes! — recalled school board members who thought renaming schools “with a connection to colonialism” was more important than educating kids.