HANNAH COX: Virginia’s Governor Race Shows America’s School Choice Moment Has Finally Arrived.
Families have endured almost two years of pandemic policy, with those with school-age children arguably suffering the most. Parents have had to scramble to school their children at home, rearrange work schedules, and deal with the growing anxiety and mental health issues their kids are facing as a result.
Parents have also gotten to see firsthand what’s actually going on in their children’s classrooms during this time, and many have not been pleased. To make matters worse, when they attempted to go through the proper channels to address these significant issues—their elected school boards—they were shut down, not allowed to speak, and ultimately labeled domestic terrorists by their federal government who attempted to sic the FBI on them in a coordinated attack between the Biden Administration and the National School Board Association. . . .
School choice used to be a third rail issue not even five years ago. I should know, I was working to pass it in Tennessee back in 2016 and 2017. Democrats didn’t want it for the reasons that they still oppose it—they work to protect the interests of unions and administrators vs families. But Republicans were hesitant at the time as well.
Those days are long gone. After the injustices in our education system were laid bare over the past year and a half, parents are rising up to demand control of their kids’ futures and looking for options to remove government from the picture. School choice is no longer a fringe issue. Indeed, many have become single-issue voters on it.
In fact, a national school choice poll now shows 67 percent of voters want school choice. And if the Virginia race tells us anything, it’s that parents are going to vote for it as soon as they get the chance.
While it is unfortunate that it takes a catastrophe like COVID-19 for many to recognize the depth of problems in our educational system, we can at least hope that a silver-lining of this pandemic is a permanent wake-up call for parents.
The actions taken and statements made on education during the course of the pandemic by the left have made it clear that they believe the nation’s children belong to them. Just the mention of school choice or parental control draws sneers from those who feel entitled to the cash cow each child represents in the system. For them, it is not about educational outcomes (clearly), but rather about control.
It always is with these people.