‘School Choice Week’: Don’t Buy the Lie
Maybe it’s time for activists to start working state by state to put restrictions on schools that receive vouchers making them meet at least the standards that our public schools must. This plan worked exceedingly well for abortion opponents, so let’s make sure that public voucher money is spent on quality education and not religious indoctrination.
This week is “National School Choice” week. Although many of the participants and supporters of the event join solely to support public school choice options, like charter schools and magnets schools, the organizers’ true purpose is to push private school choice options, specifically vouchers.
Unfortunately, that nuance often gets lost in this well-funded event, which is oddly filled with Heritage Foundation 5k races, Heartland Foundation bowling parties, and even official dance performances. School Choice Week might be a big, expensive production, but that doesn’t mean the public - or even all its participants - wants private school vouchers. To the contrary, the vast majority of the public opposes vouchers, whether in opinion polls or at the voting booth.
It makes sense that vouchers are unpopular. Vouchers don’t improve academic achievement. They also predominantly flow to religious schools, thus requiring all taxpayers to subsidize religious indoctrination. And, voucher programs contain virtually no accountability measures, whether to ensure that the voucher schools are actually teaching students, have valid curriculum, are teaching students from a gas station or even have working bathrooms.