Until the end of January you will see real pro-choice people. No, not people who only want to let women get abortions. I am talking about people who actually care about children and their education during the Fifth Annual School Choice Week. Here are three reasons why you should pay attention.
The More Choice, The Better
First and foremost, as with almost any market, more choice means you have more options for your children. Can you send your child to a nearby school district because they have better programs? Can your child not attend your neighborhood’s public school because it cares more about union dues and collective barganings? Does your state empoweryou to choose for your child’s education? Are classes offered online? Do you have a say on how yourtax money is used for your child’s education? Can you homeschool your children?
(AP Photo/AJ Mast)
The more choices you have, the more enlightened your decision.
You Are In a Better Position to Decide What’s Best For Your Children
When you have more choices, you are in a better position to determine the type of education your child should receive.
If you have the time and resources, you could put that idea to practice and educate your children yourself. They will very likely outperform any children from the local schools, both for test results and social skills. Plus they will be better humans overall, doing more volunteer work and participate more in civic life.
Give Your Children a Second Chance
Finally, if your city is blessed with school choice it’s likely that there are charter schools. Of course, liberals usually aren’t pro-choice when it comes to these schools. After all, they mostly hire non-unionized teachers and can fire the incompetents more easily.
And yet, from Atlanta to Los Angeles, from Memphis to New York City, charter schools do as well (if not better) than public schools. And this is despite the fact that, at least in very large cities, they have to deal with high poverty rates – more tham 75 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
How can that be? As stated above most teachers are not unionized. That way, even the most experienced teacher can be fired if too many of his students fail. No such policy exists in Montana, making the state the worst according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.
This also means that teachers are more dedicated to children. They are not busy using their time deciding who their union should support for the next election. While it may take its toll on some – personnel turnover rates can be higher than regular schools – those that stay will see their wages adjusted accordingly.
Of course that's not to say that public schools are all bad. In fact the presence of school choice is actually what's pushing them to improve so they can retain students. The schools in my region offered programs like sports and languages because they wanted to compete with private schools who offered the same programs.
So if you are plagued with poverty, winning the charter school lottery could be the best thing happening to your children.
In short, if you want to make “America great again” you should definitely support school choice. Education is something much too important to be left to unions and bureaucrats in your state – or worse, in D.C.
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