Some members of the legislature believe that public schools are no longer “fixable.” They want universal state-funded spending accounts to allow all students, rich or poor, to escape public schools. They call it “school choice,” but it’s really an insidious transfer of power to the state.
Yes, public schools are a uniform mess, but the fault ultimately lies with the state. The legislature could fix the mess by deregulating and restoring diversity in public schools. You know the phrase: “local control.” But, it’s politically easier to create a shiny new entitlement (aka “welfare”) program. Who doesn’t like “free” money?
School districts were independent when first created and for over a hundred years afterward. There were more than 3,000 districts in our state. Parents could change their school district by notifying their town clerk, and the education portion of their property taxes would be redirected to their new school district. If no district was acceptable, a petition with ten signatures was sufficient to create a new one. Parents had real choice in terms of academic instruction.
What happened to local school districts?
The state throttled the independence and diversity of public school instruction.
The state stopped trusting local decision-making a century ago. The state incentivized districts to consolidate into 100 School Administrative Units, which are larger, drastically reducing the voice of parents. The state distributed funds (grants) with strings attached to implement uniform testing, data tracking, and a variety of controversial and disturbing programs, from behavior modification to transformative political activism.
Property taxes are soaring because school districts are implementing programs, testing, and data collection in exchange for funding. That requires hiring more administrators who manage everything from special education to social-emotional learning.
Some legislators complain that public schools are no longer ”fixable” because of the unions, but again, the state is to blame. The state licensed public school teachers and administrators, creating a monopoly that could be exploited. The state created laws enabling public sector unions: see The Public Employee Labor Relations Act of 1975, and created the state retirement system, which added another layer of spending.
State-funded “school choice” is the state’s “final education solution.”
“School choice” is not a grassroots movement like homeschooling, where hundreds of parents fought to be left alone to educate their children. “School choice” is nationally orchestrated by political think tanks promoting the final step to state control of education through the funding of private education, which includes homeschooling.
Overlooking the amount of extra state spending needed to fund private education even partially, where is the legislative duty to do so in our state constitution? Nowhere.
If public education disappears, which is the goal of these legislators, our residual self-governance mechanism of “electing our own public teachers and contracting with them for their support and maintenance” will also disappear. All of us, parents or not, will be taxed to fund education without a voice in curricula or an elected seat at the table.
With state funding, the independence of private education will slowly erode. State funding always results in state regulation. In Sweden, children can choose public, private, or religious schools and attend for free, but the curriculum is the same in all of them. Homeschooling has been outlawed because Swedish parents were deemed to have “enough” choices.
“School choice” is a power shift centralizing control at the state level, away from parents and taxpayers. When the independence of private education disappears, legislators will once again cry, “it’s not fixable,” but at that point parents will have nowhere to go.
Inherent contradiction
Legislators adamantly claim that they can prevent state regulation of private education despite state funding. Really? If legislators could actually prevent state regulation, why couldn’t they protect independent public schools from state regulation? Why can’t they roll that back?
Going forward
Whenever taxpayer funds are spent, parents and taxpayers need locally elected school board to oversee the content and caliber of the instruction. History says they can’t and shouldn’t rely on the state.
If parents want tax payer-funded curriculum choice, it must be a local choice within traditional public schools. Restoring the diversity and independence of public schools is the only way to stop a state takeover of private education and ensure education freedom.
