Three letters strike fear in the hearts of teachers’ unions and public schools in our state—three letters that arouse hatred and animosity in our teachers: EFA. Educational Freedom Accounts.
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EFAs are designed to give parents options in the education of their child. But in the face of those options, teachers’ unions spew hatred, claiming that the parents using these accounts are stealing from the students in their public schools. The unions insist that the funds being used for EFAs are necessary to provide a better education for the students in their institutions but don’t seem interested in the welfare of the students left behind. Imagine: accusing kids seeking better educational alternatives for themselves of theft! Isn’t the purpose of education funding the very thing their parents are seeking?
For many decades unions have insisted that more funding is necessary to improve the outcomes in our schools. And while funding has increased for decades, test scores and other indicators of the well-being of the children in these institutions have steadily declined. Yet we are to believe, with the contrary evidence notwithstanding, that we should continue to throw more money at a system that is consistently failing our children, and we should prevent parents who would seek better options for their children from being able to carry those dollars to institutions that are consistently proven to provide better results.
So we seem left with a truth: the issue that these unions decried isn’t the welfare of students but the welfare of the teachers. But these cries of need from educators willing to sacrifice the best interests of the students they serve are increasingly falling on deaf ears. More and more parents seek to move their students to private institutions or charter schools that provide consistently higher test scores and better learning opportunities. But these heralds of public failure would deny more students the opportunity to have options for their success.
As parents of children, which of you would choose not to offer an option to a student who is consistently bullied in his assigned public school with no relief? What about the students that need special tutoring that the public schools are ill-equipped to offer? Should they have no education? The student that is consistently bored in class and is therefore acting out? Should that student be given no options that might be a better fit for them to succeed academically? We have been told for many years that diversity is a good thing. In this regard, however, it seems as though there is a one-size-fits-all solution. No quarter is offered to anyone who falls out of line and needs to be educated in a different way, that is until the EFAs came onto the scene.
I, along with many of you, herald our public school teachers. My mother was a public school teacher, and I know how difficult a task is set before them. Has anyone considered that giving these options to students who aren’t succeeding in public schools may ease the demands on teachers, thereby making their jobs less arduous, leading them to have more success? I am not in any way opposed to public education, but I do support parents having the freedom to give their child the best option available.
In the past, parents of these children have needed to double-dip into their own resources to offer these options to their children. If the parents had limited income, their children would be sentenced to unsuccessful outcomes. Now, as interest rates rise, making a good living for a family becomes more difficult. Paying for the education of other children through taxes and trying to provide alternatives for their own borders on unattainable. Isn’t it reasonable for these parents to have options for the success of their child?
With EFAs, many parents in our state have found an option for successful outcomes for their children.
While teachers’ unions beat their drums and declare war on the parents of these students, aren’t they betraying their own intentions? Shouting that it is not the children they exist to protect?
If it is true that we want diversity and inclusion, should we not let some students be free to choose something diverse for the sake of their own success? Isn’t the point of all of this funding that a better-educated populace provides a better society for all? I would hope that, in support of these students, the reader would choose to support EFAs, to support those children who need different options to be successful.
Sometimes the best path forward to success is change.
