School Choice Skepticism

Maybe it's time to define the term "choice" for yourself, not let others do it for you...

Supporting School Choice seems like a no-brainer. Parents get to choose where to spend their child’s education funding, and public schools get some much needed competition, right? Maybe, maybe not. It depends how they're funded. 

“School Choice” advocates often use the term “education dollars” to describe what should “fund students, not systems.” Why are they called “education dollars?” Because that’s what the government calls them, otherwise they would just call them “Your money.”So the starting point for “School Choice” usually  isn’t your individual right to educate your children as you see fit, using whatever amount suits your budget and your child’s needs. It’s an amount of money,  defined by the government, that's allegedly “yours” because it’s what they'd have spent on your child if you used the public schools. We take this starting point for granted because it's been the status quo for so long, but we shouldn't. To illustrate the point, consider something arguably more vital to survival than education: food. No one from the government shows up when a baby is born, demanding to know how we plan to feed it. We aren’t told there’s a public feeding program where we’re compelled to bring babies each day, and we don’t have to ask permission to feed them at home instead. Our right to feed as we see fit is a given, and continues until they’re adults responsible to feed themselves.

Now imagine hearing someone say, “Good news! The state will now tax everyone to feed all the children. They’ll decide how much should be spent per year, per child, and will deposit that amount into an account for you to use anyplace that sells food,” would you celebrate it as a win for ”'Food Choice,” or wonder where your rights went? 

We actually have an example of such a program for food: EBT cards. People who get them don’t get to buy whatever they want to eat or drink, or use the cards anywhere that sells food. Point being, when the government provides a defined sum for specific use, they’re making important choices for you, which in turn affects your subsequent choices. In the case of “education dollars,” unless a School Choice program specifically eliminates the government middle-man, and creates an opt-out, or a savings account into which parents deposit as much or little of their own funds as they want, to be used as they see fit, the same principle will apply. Parents will first have to work to pay the government, and then use whatever they can get “back” to pay for education. What’s more, there will always be the possibility that, like EBT cards, “education dollars” could come with strings attached because money that flows through the government is almost always used as a political bargaining chip. 

For example, if “education dollars” represent credits to low-income families who paid little or nothing in school taxes, why wouldn’t those paying more want accountability through regulation attached to those sums? The same is true in reverse; if the sums are going equally to wealthy families perceived not to “needs them, why wouldn’t teachers unions, and other pro public-school voters lobby to reduce funding for School Choice programs, even after they’re approved and operational? The answer is, they would. As long as School Choice money flows through the government, politicians will face demands to do more to define or limit how the funds are used. 

Since all of the following may be referred to as “School Choice,” it’s important for parents to understand the details of what they’re being asked to support. 

• Best case scenario: money never leaves your wallet in the first place. You have a space on your tax form to opt-out of paying for the public system,  to deduct education expenses with receipts, or you have a self-funded, pre-tax Education Savings Account ( ESA). 

• Second-best: you get a defined sum in an ESA  to use for “education expenses,” with a broad definition of “education,” and clear guardrails against further restrictions or limitations written into the legislation, and requiring a supermajority to modify or overturn in the future.

• Worst case: you get a voucher you can use at a specific list of schools that accept them. This is the EBT Card of School Choice.

Sadly, choice programs currently rely on the collection and redistribution of taxpayer funds, which means the best-case scenario, the only one that fully respects your right to educate as much as your right to feed,  doesn't exist. That's why answers to concerns about government intrusion like “You’re making the perfect the enemy of the good,” or “If you’re worried about strings, don’t take the money,” are big red flags. People who care about real “choice” should be just as concerned as you are. 

Note:
This piece was originally published at Chalkboard Review, which had solicited my take on it, knowing full-well what it was, to platform diverse opinions on the subject, and was mysteriously removed without my knowledge.

I’ll leave you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions about why that is.