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Social distancing: a perfect opportunity for parents to find out what their children are learning

Jonathan Butcher March 26, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Coronavirus is interrupting life in general and education specifically. As parents in the U.S. adjust to school closures and the potential for their K-12 child’s coursework to continue online, families should come to realize that they will be exposed to more of what their children are learning.

For some, this will be new.

Wall Street Journal editor Serena Ng wrote recently from Hong Kong, where schools have been closed since Feb. 3, that she now can “see every detail of every lesson.” Ng says, “I previously had only a vague idea about what they were learning in school.”

All parents should be able to know what their children are learning, and for those paying attention in the coming weeks, the virus offers a chance for them to do just that. Working parents who juggle jobs and their children’s school activities while managing a home haven’t been neglectful if they don’t know what happened in fourth-period math on a given day (try asking a teenager what happened in class). Some simply have relied on schools to decide on instruction.

For others, this focus on content has been there all along.

March 2-4, the Institute for Classical Education and the Great Hearts Foundation held the National Classical Education Symposium, an event featuring sessions on teaching the Great Books, from “The Confessions of St. Augustine” to “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Great Hearts’ charter schools, which started in Arizona and have expanded to Texas, base their curriculum on these works. (You can find a complete list of the books students will be studying here.)

School districts are not always so transparent. As Matt Beienburg at the Goldwater Institute explained earlier this year, even if state law allows parents to review their child’s curriculum, they can do so only on school premises; in some cases and in some districts, there are limits set on when parents can see the material. Again, parents are not lazy if they don’t always know what is in their child’s syllabus.

When parents know what is being taught, they can effectively advocate for meaningful change. The reading wars over phonics versus whole language instruction are still with us today, while the Common Core debates over a national curriculum have simmered in time for everyone to scrutinize the New York Times’ 1619 Project.

The Project, a set of essays accompanied by K-12 curricular materials, “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” Slavery and the racism that followed are a blight on our nation’s past, but the Times has taken the idea too far according to many scholars. Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, leading intellectuals and even the Times’ own fact-checkers have criticized the essays, citing inaccuracies.

For thousands of parents, the initiative is not just a problem for someone else’s school. The Times and the Pulitzer Center have successfully advocated for integrating the material into some of the nation’s largest and most-high profile school systems, including Chicago, Newark, Buffalo and Washington, D.C. In Florida, Florida A&M University highlighted the Project in September 2019 and has hosted events on the topic with Florida State University.

Critically, the Times on March 11 issued a correction to a central premise of the essays, saying that not all colonial revolutionaries fought the British to protect the institution of slavery. If the Times heeds other warnings from experts, this modest correction should not be the last. Meanwhile, the Times already has disseminated the original curricular materials to schools.

Developments like these are among the many reasons why the next few weeks of school closures and online instruction are an important opportunity for parents to catch up on what is happening at their child’s school. When parents send children back to brick-and-mortar schools, they should do so ready to raise questions, prepared with more information.

Parents practicing “social distancing” in the coming weeks should use this period to get closer to their child’s school assignments.

March 26, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Charter Schools Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Parental Choice Private Schools School Choice

Transportation a crucial second-generation policy issue for education choice

Michael McShane March 17, 2020

Michael McShane

This map, included in a new EdChoice study titled “Transporting School Choice Students,” illustrates the great disparity among states in regard to transportation opportunities for students who parrticipate in education choice. The study’s co-author provides Florida-specific insights from the study in today’s blog post.

Florida is known as a land of school choice, and rightfully so. It is home to multiple large private school choice programs and a vibrant charter school sector. Its largest district proudly celebrates the fact that almost three-quarters of its students attend a school of choice.

Criticizing Florida on school choice policy feels a bit like calling out a typo in Shakespeare or complaining about a walk during a game where a pitcher throws a no hitter. I don’t want to nitpick here.

That said, Florida is a great example of the second generation of policy questions that the expansion of school choice asks. During the first generation of school choice advocacy and school choice policy, proponents were working to start programs and clear just a little space in the state’s schooling landscape to try something new and different. They met with great success, that should be celebrated.

But just like winning the lottery causes you to have a bigger tax bill, expanding school choice creates a new set of challenges that supporters need to tackle. A vibrant school choice system needs a supporting infrastructure. And perhaps there is no more important piece of the infrastructure puzzle than transportation.

Put yourself in the shoes of a parent who was just awarded a tax credit scholarship, or who just won a charter lottery to the school they have been hoping to send their child to for years. Think of the elation, the feeling that this is their lucky day. Their ship has finally come in.

But then imagine that family realizing that transportation is not part of the deal. Their child can attend the school, if they can get her there. But they can’t. How heartbreaking. It would be like running a marathon but twisting your ankle on the last mile.

This is the case for far too many families across the country. While I don’t live in Florida, I have to imagine it is the case for some Florida families as well. What’s more, this scenario doesn’t contemplate the families who don’t even bother applying for a scholarship or a slot in a charter school because they know that they cannot make transportation work.

These experiences were what motivated the new research paper I wrote with my colleague Michael Shaw, called Transporting School Choice Students. In it, we survey state pupil transportation statutes to see what requirements are placed on schools to provide transportation to students choosing a school outside of their geographically-assigned school, whether by inter-district enrollment, charter schooling, or going to private school.

What we found was an incongruous briar patch of mandates and flexibility that varied among and even within states. Some states support some forms of choice and not others. Some allow flexibility in funding but don’t put requirements on it. Still others support some classes of students (like students in schools that have been identified as failing or students with special needs) but not others. Some support choice across the board, and others don’t support choice transportation at all.

Looking at Florida law, we identified that with respect to inter-district transfers, Florida does not require districts to provide transportation. For charter school students, mandatory funding exists for students, but through contiguous districts only, and for private school students, districts and private schools have the flexibility to work out arrangements for pupil transportation, but there are no requirements. In each of these cases, we see limitations on the ability of students to access schools of choice based on the transportation options available.

At the same time, Florida is one of the only states to provide transportation funding in their private school choice programs. The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program and the Family Empowerment Scholarship program allow participating students to apply their scholarship funds to necessary transportation costs (amongst other allowable uses). Also, students can get a $750 tax credit scholarship specifically to support transportation to another public school district, if they so choose.

Allowing scholarship dollars to be used for transportation is a no-brainer, and every private school choice program in America should create it as an allowable use. That said, too many scholarships are funded at low levels that already stretch school budgets. Further dividing that money will only make the problem worse. Creating specific additional funding streams to cover transportation is a better solution. It is more expensive, but will make the prospect of choice more real for more families.

Even Michael Jordan had to practice every day if he wanted to get better. Florida is no different. It might be the Michael Jordan of school choice, but it can always do more to help more students. Solving the transportation puzzle is one way to do that.

March 17, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education Choice Education Equity Featured Jack Coons Parent Empowerment Parental Choice School Choice

Trusting John Dewey?

John E. Coons March 11, 2020

John E. Coons

The curriculum and the teaching method that are ideal for children have long been in dispute and remain so. Favorite methods range from Montessori to Steiner to traditional classroom lecture, recital and ABCs; the same diversity holds for the perfect content – factual, moral and political.

Many, also, are the professional luminaries who enlighten us on these questions, each confident of this or that solution.

Up to a point, this variety seems quite understandable and even healthy. Long observation of schools of education at various universities convinces me that method and content in pedagogies for children are as little matters of science as are law and the visual arts. We can sometimes (to a degree) recognize the rare classroom teaching genius, but such heroes tend to be inconspicuous in education school.

Nor is their gift always obvious even when they have made it to the classroom. Happily, the great run of teachers are at least competent – and bless them.

The great diversity of teaching style and substance is plainly cordial to the issue of parental choice. Even John Dewey appears to have thought so, and almost said it. That great guru of schooling would be an interested observer of our current debate over the empowerment of low-income parents to choose for their own child.

In his definitive “My Pedagogic Creed,” written in pre-voucher days, Dewey offered these foundational pearls:

“ … the school life should grow gradually out of the home life; … it should take up and continue the activities with which the child is already familiar in the home.”

“ … it is the business of the school to deepen and extend his sense of the values bound up in this home life.”

Today’s public school professional might snicker. Dewey could have foreseen very little of life as it would come to be lived in the “inner city” of today where home is too often a place and environment to be escaped. Yet, is it absurd to wonder that one detriment of that very urban crisis may be the conscriptive style of those city schools whose leaders have, in the last hundred years, seemed more in tune with Plato, who despised the contribution of the home and parent, than with Dewey?

What would be the level of responsibility and authority among low-income parents of the city today if, during the 20^th century they had, like the rest of us, experienced the dignity and responsibility of the choice of school for their own children?

But, conceding the civil calamity wrought by the urban school of the 20^th century and today, might our trusting of today’s parents merely risk compounding the consequences? If we try to fix it all by trusting the poor, will the newly empowered parent prove already hopelessly corrupted, making the urban scene even worse with his new options? No doubt there would be plenty of parental mistakes; these could be expected as the fruit of our long disabling of the poor.

Worse, several generations of mistrust might prove to have been dehumanizing beyond repair. Can we be certain of the effect of the sudden experience of authority? Still, choice would at least allow the parent to learn by mistake and experience. Mothers and fathers have done well so far with the opportunities already given them in various states to decide for their own child.

I see no alternative but the adoption of systems of subsidized choice that are designed, step by step, year by year, to reach at last a universal empowerment of the poor. America cannot afford another century of the present regime of abduction by the state. The social structure of our public schools is poisonous, but it can be fixed. It will take time and patience, but there is no alternative.

March 11, 2020 0 comment

2020 Presidential Election Blog Guest Charter Schools Chris Stewart Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Featured Funding Opinion School Choice

Presidential candidates do not think all children are created equal

Chris Stewart February 28, 2020

Chris Stewart

Editor’s note: This column from redefinED guest blogger Chris Stewart first appeared Feb. 25 on Education Post.

I’m starting to notice a trend among the presidential candidates. I don’t think they’re vying to be a president who represents all Americans, just some. It sounds crazy but hear me out.

When Democratic frontrunners lavish attention on traditional public schools to the exclusion of charters, privates, and homeschoolers, it’s as if the worth of a child instantly plummets the moment they are enrolled in a disfavored school. As if their families don’t pay taxes and aren’t worthy as voters. Never mind the fact that many of the candidates have taken advantage of these same options.

Not to be outdone, President Trump got in on the action when he released a budget that cut funding for charter schools but increased funding for privates. Some of his supporters have told me not to worry because one, a president’s budget is a fictional thing, and two, the funding for charter schools is just being bundled together with other programs. It’s called “block granting” and that’s a good thing because it can give states the flexibility to use the money in a way that makes sense for their local context.

That sounds great in theory until you consider the fact that flexibility in a state like California, the largest charter system in America, could easily fall victim to union politics. Handing over charter school money would be a financial love letter to a fickle governor, one that would give him Thanos-like powers to snap his fingers and freeze charters startups.

But maybe I’m making too much of this.

The candidates would respond to me by saying they aren’t proposing the elimination of charter schools. They just want to slow their growth. And, the block-granting of federal funds isn’t the end-all of charter funding. And, after all, maybe there is more to life than charters. Most of the candidates are proposing enormous new investments that will grow school staff and provide more services to kids.

Who can complain about that? I can.

Yes, research shows that money matters in public education, but some of the nation’s biggest spenders are still hot zones of poor achievement and unacceptable results. Teachers unions and their allies have cleverly called for things like “community schools” as a main investment. It sounds good until you consider the fact that many of the existing community schools need help. Lots of it.

And no matter how much you wrap kids in services, it will still be a problem that our nation’s teachers aren’t recruited from the top of the class, their preparation is trash, and the support of many of those who teach in the toughest schools is nonexistent. To cover this with “I-stand-with-teachers” happy talk is to prove oneself incapable of true leadership.

We need a leader who will stand up for all families. We need someone who will fight for every American child equally. Today, parents from around the country are headed to South Carolina in hopes of meeting with presidential candidates to urge them to bring about “big, bold changes.” Because the fact is, every child deserves a better education, and our current system isn’t offering that.

We need people who can bring us together rather than continuing the bad practice of pitting parents against each other, then siding with the groups that want one form of schooling to be the only form of schooling.

Which leader is that?

I’m looking.

February 28, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Savings Accounts Education Spending Featured Jonathan Butcher School Choice

Ongoing debate over district fraud in Tennessee shines positive light on education savings accounts

Jonathan Butcher February 26, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Between 2015 and early 2016, the U.S. Attorney’s office determined that a national insurance fraud scheme involving prescription drugs included Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Tennessee, the insurance administrator for the Hamilton County Department of Education.

Who knew a prescription cream could be so expensive?

Last fall, officials suspended three Tennessee public school employees while investigators reviewed the individuals’ involvement in an insurance fraud scheme that cost the school district some $800,000. The issue dates to around 2015, when two doctors began writing prescriptions for pain-relieving creams to be bought in bulk. Some of the claims were filled through the Hamilton County School district’s insurance plan.

The fraud in Hamilton County, the school district encompassing Chattanooga, has all the makings of a con: Kickbacks, third party-intermediaries in California, and crooked doctors. The movie script writes itself.

Auditors and other investigative offices regularly uncover such illicit activities in school districts around the country. With some $600 billion in federal, state, and local funds flowing to schools every year, district offices, especially, are vulnerable to a wide range of financial crimes, from embezzlement to common theft.

In the 1990s, large school systems such as Chicago and Los Angeles created offices of inspectors general to deal with the problems. Yet some of these offices say that the number of claims is more than they can investigate.

Chicago’s inspector says that the office cannot open enough cases, which “creates a substantial risk, that waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement, and employee misconduct go undetected.” The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has written similar warnings in the agency’s regular reports to Congress. Chicago is home to one of the largest examples of theft in recent years, as former CPS Superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for her role in manipulating district contracts totaling $23 million.

Periodically, districts without dedicated inspectors general consider adding such offices. For example, in 2016, the Broward County (Florida) School Board considered adding an inspector to the district. When board discussion turned to using the federal inspector general instead of creating a new office in the school district, a federal representative said he must “cherry-pick complaints to investigate because there are only five investigators to cover the entire state of Florida,” according to the Sun-Sentinel—echoing the complaints from Chicago and the federal OIG’s home office.

The boxes of pain-relieving cream in Tennessee and Chicago’s illegal contracts help to put claims of misspending among Tennessee’s education savings accounts (called “Individualized Education Plans”) in perspective. Tennessee’s accounts operate similar to Florida’s Gardiner Scholarships, and families of children with special needs can use the accounts to choose a school or customized set of learning services, including education therapy and personal tutors, for their student.

No amount of graft or misuse of resources meant for a child’s education is acceptable. But recurring claims in the media of “serious problems” with the accounts—most recently coming from the Daily Memphian, but Arizona media have made similar accusations—ignore the size and scope of fraud in school districts and lawmakers’ efforts to limit such problems in the savings accounts.

For example, the financial loss due to fraudulent prescriptions in the Chattanooga district described above is larger than all the money parents are suspected of misspending statewide in Arizona and Tennessee’s education savings accounts combined in 2018. Audits of Arizona’s accounts have found that the total amount of suspected misuse hovers around 1 percent or less of the total amount the account awards annually.

Meanwhile, Arizona policymakers have taken an innovative approach to education savings account oversight and contracted with a private firm to monitor individual transactions. As explained on redefinED last year, North Carolina officials have already outsourced management responsibilities for education savings accounts in their state. The new systems can confirm eligible savings account families and their intended purchases before processing a transaction, helping to limit intentional or unintentional misspending.

Now, Tennessee’s Department of Education is trying to do the same. Tennesseans should applaud state officials for upgrading these accounts at the first sign of trouble, as opposed to letting fraud fester for years as commonly happens in school districts. Remember, the prescription fraud in Chattanooga began in 2015. Parents and taxpayers should not have to wait five years for fraudulent use of a child’s education spending to be resolved.

February 26, 2020 0 comment

2020 Presidential Election Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Politics Featured Jack Coons School Choice Vouchers

The state of the (teachers) union

John E. Coons February 14, 2020

John E. Coons

Somebody in the White House has been thinking. President Trump’s recent State of the Union address, while wanting perhaps in style, included a truly clever turn of the screw.

Trump stole an issue only Cory Booker among the Democrats dared to touch – school choice for low income families. Booker was ready to face the teachers union; the other candidates for the Democratic nomination were not, and now really cannot.

Trump now owns the issue, and it connects him to those individuals who are sick of having their kids conscripted for a school the child and family despise. Those persons had found the president wanting in this area, but he now will be a hero to thousands who have been crying for so long for an end to compulsion.

The details of any specific proposal will, of course, be crucial to its actual success. I trust this proposal will not be the sort of small and uniform voucher for rich and poor alike, the sort one associates with the late Milton Friedman. The rich do not need the help, and at most should qualify for a token subsidy. The need is centered on low and lower-middle income families who are simply stuck.

Could the federal government by itself afford to provide the necessary dollars for an authentic and sufficient subsidy for all the poor to have their choice of school? Of course not. But, properly designed, it could intensify popular awareness of the potential of reform at the state level.

One great stumbling block for school choice subsidies has been the 19^th century adoption by most states of so-called Blaine amendments to their constitutions. These raised legal barriers to all financial aid to religious institutions. Such laws greatly limit the states’ ability to aid the parents’ choice of religious schools which make up most of the private sector. Happily, the Supreme Court has before it litigation which could well eliminate the problem by holding these 19^th century relics of prejudice unconstitutional.

What will be the response of Democratic candidates to the dilemma Trump has posed for them? If they continue their hostility to forms of aid that allow the poor parent to choose, they will maintain the support of the teachers union but risk that of those low-income fathers and mothers who have enthusiastically stood for subsidies spendable in private school.

Trump now has in hand the sort of weapon he obviously prizes and perhaps should. He has his opponents clearly in his sights as hypocrites, the kind of slam they have so frequently given him. The Dems have made their careers as heroes of the poor. For whom will they be heroes now?

February 14, 2020 4 comments

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Courts Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Parental Choice School Choice Tax Credit Scholarships

Education choice families should heed key message in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue

Leslie Hiner February 11, 2020

Leslie Hiner

Editor’s note: Leslie Hiner, vice president of legal affairs at EdChoice, connects this U.S. Supreme Court case with the recent controversy over the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program and the interests of LGBTQ, lower-income and minority students, stressing that the position held by those who argue against financial support of religiously-affiliated schools is in direct conflict with precedent relevant in Espinoza.

Attention parents, grandparents, and anyone responsible for the K-12 education of a child under the age of 18.

You are about to be impacted in a big way by people you probably don’t know. These people do not live in your neighborhood. They know virtually nothing about you or your children. But their decision will either respect your freedom to direct the education of your child, or it will limit or jeopardize your child’s educational opportunities.

The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will deliver a decision sometime before the end of June in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. The key issue in this case is whether parents who access school choice scholarships for their children may have the option to choose a religiously affiliated school for their children’s education.

In legal terms, the question before the Court is whether it is a violation of the Religion Clauses (Free Exercise, and Establishment) or Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution to invalidate “a generally available and religiously neutral student-aid program simply because the program affords students the choice of attending religious schools.”

How does this impact you?

The justices’ decision may create a huge new opportunity for expanded learning options for your child while protecting school choice options you may enjoy today.

In Montana, religiously-affiliated schools were banned from their school choice program. Parents who accessed scholarships from the program were denied the right to use those scholarships for their children at religiously-affiliated schools, and that’s why the parents sued the state. This is different from the famous Ohio voucher case, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. In Zelman, the Court was asked whether it is constitutionally permissible for the state to include religiously-affiliated private schools in a voucher program. The Court said yes.

In Espinoza, the Court is asked whether it’s constitutional for the state to deny parents a free choice of schools, by excluding religiously-affiliated schools from a school choice program.

Espinoza could apply to you in two ways. If you live in a state with a Blaine Amendment that has no education choice, a favorable decision in Espinoza could energize legislators to enact school choice programs. If you live in a state with a Blaine Amendment but nonetheless have vouchers or similar programs, a favorable U.S. Supreme Court decision could remove all doubt as to the constitutionality of those programs and energize legislators to expand existing educational opportunities. Blaine amendments cast a heavy shadow over legislator confidence regarding constitutionality; if lifted, legislators will find a much clearer path toward expansive educational choice.

Religious freedom, guaranteed to each of us under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, plays an important role in education. A majority 66.4 percent of private schools are religiously affiliated, and 78 percent of private school students attend religiously-affiliated schools. Also, until the late 20^th century, public schools operated like Protestant schools where children prayed and recited verses from the King James Bible.

I stand as a witness to this history, remembering the day it was my turn, in the sixth grade at my public school (not in the Bible Belt), to choose and deliver the scripture reading of the day. The absence of faith (or hostility toward religion) in today’s public schools has heightened parent interest in the virtues and offerings of religiously-affiliated schools, perhaps in part because today’s grandparents and some parents remember when faith in God – expressed casually in public schools – was as normal as saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

In Florida, religiously-affiliated schools that are part of the state’s tax credit scholarship program are under attack by some individuals who allege the schools’ religious beliefs are discriminatory and therefor, the schools should not be supported. This position is in direct conflict with U.S. Supreme Court precedent, which is relevant in Espinoza. When religiously-affiliated schools participate in student-aid programs, the state’s position regarding those schools must be neutral; discriminatory judgment regarding religious beliefs would violate the right to freely exercise those beliefs.

Thinly veiled attempts to compel scholarship groups or the state to violate neutrality toward religiously-affiliated schools is ill-considered.

During Espinoza oral arguments, Supreme Court justices were reminded that parents, not scholarship groups or the state, decide which school is the right fit for their children. Florida donors targeting religiously-affiliated schools should also be reminded that parents choose these schools; sometimes parents’ religious beliefs align with the schools, and sometimes parents choose a school for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. When corporate donors oppose the religious beliefs of those schools, they are punishing parents for choosing those schools, regardless the reason. Corporate donors have no requirement to fund scholarships, but when they stop funding scholarships to compel discrimination against those who hold certain religious beliefs, that’s wrong – and offensive to the First Amendment of the Constitution.

“Generally available and religiously neutral student-aid programs” fund parents on behalf of their children; the public benefit of these programs is directed to students through their parents. “Student-aid” programs do not fund schools. This principle has been clear since the Court’s 2002 Zelman decision. As Dick Komer, the Institute for Justice attorney representing parents in Espinoza, stated to the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments, “Zelman has already answered the question about who this program is aiding. It’s not aiding the schools. It is aiding the parents.”

No person has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to force states to directly fund private schools like they directly fund public schools. Nonetheless, the Court chose to take the funding question to another level during Espinoza oral arguments.

Justice Breyer began the discussion with probing questions on whether a win for the parents in this case would also mean states would be forced to fund private schools directly along with funding public schools. Would a favorable decision mean states would violate the Constitution if they failed to directly fund both public and private schools?

An important, and unexpected, lesson emerged from this line of questioning.

Montana’s school choice program applies universally to all children in that state. And Justice Breyer’s questions rested solely on the principle that education funding applies to all children. He drew no distinction between education funding for children whose parents have higher income or lower income, or children who attend “A” rated or “F” rated schools, as is the case with many school choice programs.

As I listened to the debate, it struck me that a discussion on school choice funding that presumed funding would apply universally to all children was unusual. And it was refreshing.

Advocates of educational freedom often disagree about whether it is possible, or even desirable, for a state to provide scholarship programs for all children, regardless of income or circumstances. Yet, Supreme Court decisions on the constitutionality of educational choice apply to all children, not some children. This is a good precedent that all education reformers should follow.

The explosion of education alternatives illustrated in Step Up For Students’ Education Landscape document proves options are continuing to grow, with micro-schools being the latest alternative presenting real learning opportunities for children. As we continue to embrace innovative ways to educate the next generation of leaders, we should be mindful that all children have a right to learn.

If you notice that the sparkle of youth and joy of learning – that twinkle in your child’s eyes – has disappeared, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and their peers may be the last people you’ll think about when wondering if you’ll be able to access an education for your child that will rekindle that joy of learning. However, now is the time to pay attention to the Supreme Court, and to learn a powerful lesson about providing educational benefits to all children.

For more rederfinED posts about Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, click here and here.

February 11, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Courts Education Choice Education Equity Faith-based Education Featured Jack Coons Parental Choice School Choice

The child’s right to the parent’s choice

John E. Coons February 4, 2020

John E. Coons

Founders of the Oregon order Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, about 1859

Nearly a century ago, in 1925, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Pierce v. Society of Sisters. The state of Oregon had, by popular initiative, decided every child of school age would attend a “public” school to satisfy minimum educational requirements. Every family was to deliver its child to the state; St. Theresa and Johnson’s Private Academy could no longer satisfy the law of compulsory education.

Hence, the Sisters sued for their professional lives and the litigation rose to the federal judicial summit.

The Court in the 1920s was at the zenith of free market protectionism. Its holding in Pierce was technically a victory for those schools that were the initial plaintiffs, but the Court took the opportunity to broaden its message, stressing:

“[Oregon’s] act of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians … the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

The state, of course, remained secure in its capacity to impose a set of reasonable rules binding upon the private sector of schooling. But the parents remained master of the rest of the content of the child’s formal education; their sovereignty remains solid to this day, including the authority to choose the child’s formal educator. What seems worth adding to our focus is the court’s brief and ambiguous reference to the child’s own separate interest in receiving the parents’ choice: “The child is not the mere creature of the state.”

Children, of course, enjoy a cluster of legal rights, all of them protected both by and against their parent. The state has an obligation to interfere in case of serious abuse by parents. But the state itself also can become the abuser. A parent’s power to decide is of great value to the child, one that is protected by law as a personal right.

But compare, then, the status of the child of the poor with that of the well-off created by our systems of compulsory education. Given the protection of Pierce, the parent of the middle class on up is recognized both in law and fact as the one who nurtures and directs his destiny throughout childhood – that is, unless the parent is systematically and unnecessarily shorn of this authority and duty by the state itself. And so it is with the child of the poor in respect to school.

That boy or girl whose life experience is otherwise determined by adults who know and love him or her sadly has 13 years of early life determined by no human decision at all. “You live here; the law says that you go to school there.” The child is delivered to an institution that has never heard her name, to strangers who will have no reason to remember her, or her parent.

Worse, perhaps, little Jim or Susie is made witness to the near irrelevance of mother and father in the child’s own life story. The best they can do for the child is to play the sympathetic listener to sad stories about which they can do nothing. They “… have the right coupled with the high duty,” but they have been disabled by their own government.

Enter the Supreme Court – maybe.

The child’s own distinctive and separate constitutional right to the parents’ choice could well be considered by the justices as a core element of decision in the Montana school choice case, the latest chapter in the battle over the use of public funding for religious schools. Its emergence here as a clear element of our constitutional law would be a recognition of dignity for the low-income parent and a workable application of the 14^th Amendment.

February 4, 2020 0 comment