Thoughts on Public Education and Choice (or lack thereof)

Part of what frustrates many middle of the road and conservative parents is that too many so-called “progressive” ideas, fads, trends, and beliefs – such as those initiated, with disturbing results, by one school district mentioned here - are peddled in public schools in direct contravention of the ideals, mores, wishes, and beliefs of families that often have little recourse in terms of where they can send their children to be educated.

An obvious solution is to provide greater choice to parents concerning where they may send their children to school. Private schools immediately come to mind, but the cost is often prohibitive. The wealthy and powerful, of course, have always had school choice; it’s the middle and lower classes that have been for the most part consigned to the public school monopoly. Voucher programs and charter schools offer promising choices and alternatives to the non-rich and non-powerful – and yet who opposes them? The “progressives”!

One of the great ironies of our age is that while “progressivism” is seen as principally a characteristic of the left, and being “reactionary” as a characteristic of the right, the reverse is actually true when the subject turns to providing and promoting the most equitable and responsive system with which to educate our children.

It is the education establishment that seeks to maintain the public school quasi-monopoly status quo, or even "roll back" the clock to a more nearly complete monopoly. It seems to continuously ward off any attempts to break the dominance of public schools in the education world. School vouchers, on the other hand, are a bold and innovative means by which to expand the ideal of school choice – currently enjoyed now only by the rich and powerful – into the middle and lower classes. It is, in that respect, an inherently progressive initiative.

It’s therefore very ironic that nominal “progressives” who oppose and who seek to roll back these initiatives are in fact the true reactionaries - doing their utmost to minimize or prevent affordable, publicly subsidized access to school choice and middle-and- lower income parents’ subsequent power to choose the best educational paths and options for their children.