Restoring parental power in education
Our education system in America
from top to bottom not only needs to change, it needs a complete and dramatic
overhaul. While it’s easy for those who control educational decisions at the
state and local level to stick with what is most familiar, and to simply
request more and more taxpayer funding to do things the very same way they have
always done them, this has not worked. We are falling behind the rest of the
world.
So this Christmas, my wish list, as
a taxpayer, father, policy maker, and school choice proponent, is this:
1. We must start listening to
parents and stop telling them we're the only ones who know what is best for their children. Parents
want to send their kids to the very best schools, not to the schools some
bureaucrat tells them they can attend!
2. We must stop wasting precious
taxpayer money fighting school choice in court. Florida is fighting entrenched
special interests over parental choice, and this is ridiculous! Associations
that purportedly represent the interests of teachers, school board members,
school administrators, and parents initiated this litigation. Hanging in the
balance are 70,000 students who love the tax credit scholarship schools they
attend. They do not want their scholarships taken from them by the guardians of
the status quo.
3. We must focus on making all of
our schools better, rather than fixating on quashing competition from any and all
other education providers. Competition forces us all to improve, and
competition will make the public schools better.
We simply must evolve or our
system will implode.
Countries around the world are
spending less per pupil and achieving better outcomes than we are. In order to
compete, we must innovate and empower parents to choose the right school for
their children. The future of the public school system in America depends upon
our willingness to listen to our constituents. We need to offer a wide
assortment of choices and options to all students, including virtual,
traditional, vocational, technical, private schools, or any combination thereof.
Taxpayer-funded education for students is a right, and I believe it is a right
we owe students and parents — not to a dysfunctional governmental jobs and
enrichment system that too often fails.
Education in 20 to 30 years will
look very different than it does today. Homeschooling will continue
to grow,
and parents with means will, in many cases and in many communities, choose to
pay the extra money necessary to send their students to private schools, where
they are confident about things such as curriculum, rigor, quality, and school discipline actually being enforced to promote SAFETY.
Meanwhile, many middle-class and poor students will be left with limited and oftentimes less
effective options. That’s why we’re seeing demand for change – demand from
parents to send their students to the schools they want utilizing tax-credit scholarships
or “backpack funding.”
Why should taxpayers not have
free choice as to where they want to send their children with their own tax
money? This change is coming; it is only a matter of time.
I believe in public education,
I'm a product of public education, and I think survival of the public education
system depends upon giving parents and students more choice.
So this Christmas season, my
biggest wish of all is that we take back the education agenda from the
self-absorbed, self-motivated special interests that want to control every facet
of education in America. Let’s give it back to whom it rightfully belongs:
parents and students.
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