All the fuss was about school choice, not Betsy DeVos

“The opposition to school choice for the poor is the starkest immorality in contemporary politics. It is the defense of the strong (teachers unions) and comfortable (the middle class, content with its public schools and fretful that school choice might diminish their schools’ resources and admit poor children to their schools) against the weak and suffering — inner city children. “

George F. Will wrote the above quote in a column published in June of 2002, and it remains true today.

The opposition to Betsy DeVos had nothing to do with Grizzly bears or her familiarity with I.D.E.A. It has everything to do with her long years of advocacy for educational choice, especially for poor families. Educational choice is a threat to the teacher’s unions such as American Federation of Teachers. By contrast, DeVos founded the American Federation for Children to “improve our nation’s K-12 education by advancing systemic and sustainable public policy that empowers parents, particularly those in low-income families, to choose the education they determine is best for their children.”

Thomas Sowell is a black Ph.D. economist from the Hoover Institute in Stanford who grew up in the public school system in NYC in the 1940s, has carefully followed the regression of the quality of inner city schools over the years, and has written a valuable book on public education; he wrote this in a recent column on the DeVos nomination:

“Some of these charter schools […] operate in low-income, minority neighborhoods in the inner-cities, and turn out graduates who can match the educational performances of students in affluent suburbs. What is even more remarkable, these charter schools are often housed in the very same buildings, in the very same ghettoes, where students in the regular public schools fail to learn even the basics in English or math. You and I may think this is great. But, to the teachers’ unions, such charter schools are a major threat to their members’ jobs — and ultimately to the unions’ power or existence.”

James D. Agresti of JustFacts published an excellent primer that exposes many of the myths surrounding school choice. Here are a few of the key conclusions from the primer.

• “Private school choice programs boost per-student funding in public schools, because the public schools no longer educate the students who go to the private schools, which typically spend much less per student than public schools. This leaves additional funding for the students who remain in public schools.”
• “School choice provides the most direct form of accountability, which is accountability to students and parents. With school choice, if parents are unhappy with any school, they have the ability to send their children to other schools.”
• “At least 21 high-quality studies have been performed on the academic outcomes of students who remain in public schools that are subject to school choice programs. All but one found neutral-to-positive results, and none found negative results. This is consistent with the theory that school choice stimulates competition that induces public schools to improve.”

As a parent of an adult with permanent disabilities, who benefited greatly from her public school special needs education, I can personally refute the canard that school choice would harm special needs education. The opposite is true. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act already allows choices for parents, and many parents of children with disabilities have successfully advocated for private, even for-profit, educational alternatives that they feel better meets the needs of their child. We had our daughter placed for a few years in a private non-profit school that specialized in addressing speech language issues.  Other parents we know were not as successful because they were unable to demonstrate that the local District was not able to provide an “appropriate” educational alternative. School choices would enhance educational alternatives available to children with or without disabilities.

Finally, it is worth noting the hypocrisy of the most vocal opponents of school choice, who sent their own children to private schools. Their advocacy seeks to deny the same opportunity to poor children who cannot afford private school.

School choice for me — but not for thee, or your kids

“Too many Democrats ballyhoo the imploding government-school system for everyone else, especially poor black and Hispanic children, even as they and their spawn dive through the escape hatches onto private campuses. Ironically, multibillionaire education reformer Betsy DeVos favors private-school options available for low-income students in America’s ghettos and barrios. The fact that Senate Democrats are lined up unanimously to stop her — under orders of their teachers’-union owners — highlights the moral rot at the core of America’s so-called party of the little guy.”