PHOENIX — Fittingly, the youngest of the 48 contiguous states is leading the brisk pace of national acceptance of school choice as the future of K-12 education. Predictably, Arizona Democrats, including Gov. Katie Hobbs, appear determined to anemicly regulate a program that is too popular to eliminate, especially in some traditional Democratic constituencies.
In the state's Universal Education Savings Account program, the money follows the students. The ESA provides parents of children who drop out of traditional public schools an average of $7,143 to spend on alternative education, such as homeschooling. Arizona spends about $13,500 per public school student. If everyone chose her ESA, the state would save money.
Here, school choice will be phased in, first (in 2011) for children with special needs, then for those attending failing schools, then for parents of active duty military personnel, and then for those on reservations. Became Native American. It was the virus that greatly accelerated sound education policy. Republican Ben Thoma, the state's House speaker, said a universal ESA “would not have been possible without the coronavirus.”
The pandemic was a headwind that filled the sails of the pro-choice movement across the country. Children entrusted with “distance learning” opened their laptops at home, and parents heard that indoctrination was playing a role in learning. And they pushed back against teachers' unions lobbying to keep schools closed, even though children are an age group not essentially at risk from the coronavirus. Even before the pandemic, illegal teacher strikes caused Arizona parents to (in Thoma's words) “flee stupidity.” As Timothy Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute has put it, “the mystique of the public school teacher” is fading.
Ninety-nine years ago, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an Oregon law requiring children to attend public schools, affirming parents' right to “direct” their children's education. Teachers unions, one of the largest donors to the Democratic Party, have worked tirelessly to undermine this right with regulations and lawsuits over even the smallest operational choices in schools.
Follow this authorGeorge F. Will's opinion
For more than 30 years, charter schools (non-union public schools exempt from the bureaucratic calcification and conformity that stifle educational experimentation) have served 45 states and a Republican governor from 2015 to 2023. Doug Ducey has brought cultural and curricular diversity to DC. , which made Arizona the nation's school choice leader and was one of the reasons it received 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in its 2018 reelection victory over a Hispanic opponent. (Hispanics are the fastest-growing charter school group; the wealthy have school choice on their checkbooks.) Ducey said if Arizona's 525 charter schools were to provide the state's K-12 education He says his state would lead the nation in math, reading and science if it were a system.
More than one-third of U.S. school children now have access to choice programs. Deep blue Illinois, which recently abolished its small school choice program (which was disproportionately exploited by minorities), Texas, where school choice is firmly entrenched and reading performance is on par with higher education institutions; It spends 60% to 80% more per student than Alabama and Tennessee. Spend time in Illinois.
Educational outcomes in public schools often move inversely with expenditures that lead to administrative bloat. Between 2002 and 2020, the number of public school employees increased by approximately 780,000 people, approximately three-quarters of whom were non-teachers, and in 2020, non-teaching staff accounted for 52% of school staff. Ta. This comes amid a sharp decline in the number of students, due in part to school closures due to the pandemic. In deep-blue Connecticut, public school staffing increased by 14.1 percent from 2002 to 2020, while enrollment decreased by 8.2 percent.
Now, unions are demanding funding to combat learning loss caused by closures, fleeing public schools and discussing teacher shortages as student-teacher ratios hit historic lows. There is. But that's not the case in red Florida. In Florida, teacher salaries are increasing to accommodate the 120,000 increase in the number of people under 18 since 2020.
Arizona gained statehood in 1912, a time of populism with Theodore Roosevelt as a third-party presidential candidate, and adopted a constitutional provision to repeal laws by referendum. In 2022, teachers unions couldn't even get enough signatures to put universal ESA repeal on the ballot.
In purple Arizona, Republicans hold slim majorities in the House (31-29) and Senate (16-14). So, effectively, school choice will be on the ballot in November. Could the high stakes in voting for state House seats cause an upward ripple?
Americans are in an a la carte mood, rebelling against constraints on their choices (e.g., cable TV “cord-cutting”). And they believe that what's emanating from schools today confirms this music educator's maxim: “Mediocrity is like carbon monoxide. You can't see it, you can't smell it, but someday you'll die.” I feel that there is.
For many Americans, school is the place where they have the closest interaction with government. And the most dissatisfying point. But I'm much happier here than I was before Arizona made the selection.
