The idea that parents have no say in where their children go to school is unthinkable. This is exactly what the public school education system is like in America today. Children must go to school not by choice, but by five digits – their postcode.
If we take a closer look at public schools across America, we discover a disappointing scene. Public schools, especially in America’s cities, continue to fail to provide the solid education our children deserve. Ask yourself: If you were a parent living in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Atlanta, or another major city, would you want to send your child to a local public school? Parents are desperately looking for other options and it would be a sin not to give them some opportunity.
Parents were so desperate to move their children from failing public schools to better ones that some went to jail for doing so. In Connecticut, a mother named Tracy McDowell was thrown in jail for sending her six-year-old son to a school district where she did not live. In Ohio, mother Kelly Williams-Bolar was also sentenced to prison after forging an address and sending her two daughters to a school district where she did not live. Stories like Tracy and Kelly’s are not uncommon. Many parents are willing to do everything in their power to provide their children with the best education possible. This is why school voucher programs are such a good idea.
The school voucher program helps provide financing for low-income families so they have enough money to send their children to a private school, religious school or charter school. Thirteen states, including Washington, already have school voucher programs. The popularity of these programs sheds lithe on parents’ dissatisfaction with local public schools. North Carolina recently launched a school voucher program called the Opportunity Scholarship. After three days, over 1,400 families had applied for school vouchers. There are currently more than 500,000 students on charter school waiting lists across the country, desperate to get into a better school.
The right solution is to give parents the freedom to choose the school their children want to attend. Parents should have the freedom to send their child to public school, private school, religious school, charter school, home school, or even virtual school. The current system we have forces parents to pay taxes to fund public school education, but does not allow them to choose the school they want their child to attend. If every parent pays money into the system, why can’t they have a say in where that money goes? Is it wrong for a parent to decide how their tax dollars are spent?
Teachers’ Unions would answer yes. There are currently multiple lawsuits in which teachers unions are suing to block school voucher programs. In North Carolina, where the school voucher program is wildly popular, the North Carolina Educators Association is suing the state Office of Educational Assistance in an attempt to stop the school voucher program. Apparently Teachers’ Unions believe they have more power than parents when it comes to educating their children.
Most politicians, including President Obama, are onleft they succumbed to the power of the Teachers’ Unions. The president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refuses to move school voucher legislation to Congress. Republicans continue to introduce school choice legislation, but no progress has been made. Last month, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina introduced a bill that would provide $11 billion in federal funding to low-income families in exchange for vouchers to attend private school. Many of these low-income families are of color and live in unsafe inner cities, but it appears that politics is once again becoming more vital than the education of our children. There is little chance of this bill being adopted.
But the status quo cannot last forever. The current American education system is based on a top-down, one-size-fits-all government approach, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. American children are blessed with a variety of gifts and abilities. The government doesn’t know your child like you do. Parents, not the government, understand their children’s strengths and weaknesses and how they best learn and develop. Choosing a school is a fair and uncomplicated way to start learning, allowing parents to decide how best to educate their child. After all, God has entrusted parents with the primary responsibility of raising children.
