I should point out, before the reader gets into this piece,
that these are my personal thoughts.
Right around last Labor Day, I suddenly had a thought. I
quickly made a calculation and realized that, as of the day after Labor Day,
I’ve worked full-time in public policy for 25 years – a quarter of a century.
While there really is nothing fundamentally more special about a 25th
anniversary than a 24th or 26th one, it is a
widely-recognized demarcation point. Therefore, it seems worthwhile to take
time and write down reflections on my career. My work has touched on several
policy areas, but I’ve been thinking a lot about public education lately. That’s
the area I practically swam in when I started my career, so here are my
thoughts.
On the day after Labor Day in 1994 I started work for a
member of the Texas House of Representatives. He was the member who always
carried a voucher bill, an issue for which I was thrilled to work. By that
time, my wife had homeschooled our daughter, who was seven, for several years.
At first, it was because of my daughter’s early desire to learn to read and then
warnings that she would be ahead, and bored, in public school. But as time went
on, we attended homeschool book conferences and found out there were many
things we’d not been taught in the small-town, relatively high-quality public
school we’d attended. Much of the omitted material had to do with the political
theory underpinning the foundation of the United States as well as the nation’s
exceptional history. In the meantime, my wife had substituted in schools and we
discovered that much of the curriculum undermined the principles on which the
United States was founded. Rigor was often replaced with what amounted to propaganda
and social conditioning, not to mention the bureaucratic maneuvering that took
place.
Because of my life lessons arising out of homeschooling, the
bulk of my support for vouchers and school choice in general arose from a
sincere belief that they were key to saving our republic. I reasoned that if
entrepreneurs were teaching our kids, instead of government bureaucrats who
often belonged to unions, the educational emphasis would be very different.
Schools of choice, I reasoned, would have to compete, and they would compete on
the quality of education that they provided. And, because of their founders’
backgrounds and risk-taking, they would be more likely to recognize the value
of the foundations of free enterprise and limited government, with that reflected
in the curriculum.
Sure, I cared about kids who were bullied. I cared very much
that parents in a free country should have more say about their kids’
educations than to just make a decision about what attendance zone they lived
in. And I very much cared about rigor and student outcomes with respect to how
much and how well they were taught and how that would affect their futures in
college and other settings. I still care about all these things. But, for me
personally, my strongest motive in supporting school choice was, and
still is, to save our republic.
Way back in 1994, a quarter of a century ago, I felt a real
sense of urgency that school choice should be made universally available as
soon as possible. In the intervening years, fourteen yearly cohorts of children
have matriculated from first through 12th grade in the nation’s
public schools. Most states have charter schools now, with about 3.3
million attending. Ed Choice says there are fifteen states with
voucher programs, tax credit scholarships, Education Savings Accounts and such,
mostly targeted to special student populations, with about 275,000
participating. Somewhere around 1.8 million
kids are homeschooled. Combine these numbers with around 1.6
million in private schools, this means that after 25 years, the
number of American kids matriculating outside of government schools is only
around 9 percent of the school age population with maybe half of these in
publicly-funded schools of choice.
All things considered, from my point of view, in 25 years we
have made pitiful progress toward saving our republic. In those intervening
years, I have heard more than once that any progress at all is still progress.
Any mention I’ve ever made of the urgency of expanding school choice more
quickly was immediately quelled with explanations of incrementalism. But with
only a third of a percent of school children availing themselves of
voucher-like programs after 25 years, that’s not incrementalism; it’s failure.
I recently saw a timeline for Venezuela. In 1992, Venezuela
became the 3rd richest nation (I presume by GDP/capita) in the
western hemisphere. But in 2001, Venezuelans voted in a socialist president because
of income inequality. And now, Venezuelans are fleeing any way they can as
their own government murders dissenters and people die for lack of food and
health care.
Gallup
recently published a poll that 4 in 10 Americans embrace some form
of socialism. They’re confused about what socialism actually is, but there is
little doubt the Venezuelans were, too. Another
poll showed that younger Americans have a distinct socialist bent,
with half of Gen Zers saying they would prefer to live in a socialist country.
This is 25 years of 20/20 hindsight talking now. We are losing our republic. While for 25
years education policy resources in the freedom movement have mostly flowed
into getting tax-paid school choice for less than 5 percent of the school-age
population, well over 90 percent of our kids have matriculated in a system that
has helped to undermine our way of life. Don’t think so? How many of the
nation’s history classrooms have embraced the New York Times’ “1619
Project”? For our nation’s survival, for the freedom of new
generations yet unborn, there is no choice but to change emphasis. We MUST
engage in the public education system, impact the curriculum, and move the
needle in our direction. It might already be too late.
I am not advocating ending support for, and work toward,
school choice. If we do not find more resources, though, I do advocate
curtailment of that effort. It has not produced the results it should have by
now. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, though. I will always advocate for
school choice in all its forms, but at this point I believe we have no choice.
Waiting for growth of school choice to save the republic has proven essentially
fruitless.
My policy conclusion here is not made lightly. I have erred.
I should have better minded the traditional public education store all this
time. But now I admit the error and must figure out how to impact the
educations of the vast majority of school children in order to preserve a way
of life that could easily be lost within 20 years if ever we go the way of
Venezuela. Already, in 10 years there will hardly be anyone left in the
nation’s state legislatures with ears to hear my message.
Maybe it’s too late to have this conversation, but it seems
to me that everyone involved in public policy should accept hindsight as the
gift that it is and learn from it. I welcome comments.
Byron Schlomach is Director of the 1889 Institute and can be reached at bschlomach@1889institute.org.
The
opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily
reflect the official position of 1889 Institute.