Educational Freedom at Work
For years I’ve said that school tax dollars should flow through the student to the school the child attends. Allow the family to choose a public or private school that meets their needs. I believe most families would continue to choose their local public school but, the competition would force all schools to improve. This concept is gaining ground however, the teachers’ unions and their political supporters vigorously fight against the change. I found evidence for this in a pair of recent news articles.
On September 29th The Wall Street Journal reported in “Merrick Garland and a Michigan Mother,” that Sandra Hernden, the mother of a special needs student, plans to file a federal lawsuit against the Chippewa Valley school board. Since the early months of the COVID pandemic, Ms. Hernden has criticized that the policies of the school board have hurt her son’s learning. School board trustee Elizabeth Pyden complained about her emails to Hernden’s employer saying, “I do not believe that you would like anyone expressing this level of anger, disrespect and veiled racism in your community.” The Journal does state that some of Hernden’s remarks were “over the top.” She compared the school mask policy to Nazi Germany but the Journal concludes that Ms. Hernden was frustrated that the board seemed to ignore her son’s problems.
On the same day, the Journal ran an article headlined “Arizona School-Choice Opponents Admit Defeat.” Perhaps they should have admitted they lied. According to the report, “Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law the nation’s most expansive school-choice program in July.” The bill allows all families in the state to spend their children’s K-12 tax-education dollars on any “approved education expense.” That includes private school tuition and fees. That would give parents about $7,000 a year per student.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs
As you can imagine the teachers’ unions and their political allies didn’t like that idea. They gathered signatures to postpone the law going into effect until a referendum in 2024. To succeed they needed about 118,000 signatures. They claimed to have submitted over 10,000 signature sheets with nearly 142,000 signatures. The Arizona Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs, a school-choice opponent, put the law on hold.
However, supporters of the law submitted public-records requests and acquired copies of the petition sheets. They discovered that only 8,175 sheets had been submitted with only about 89,000 signatures. Far less than the 118,000 needed.
Did Katie Hobbs, who is now running for governor, know there were insufficient signatures? I don’t know, but the Secretary of State is responsible for supervising state and local elections and certifying the results. She should have known.
As we passed through the pandemic, the education paradigm changed. Parents became increasingly aware of trends in education brought on by COVID, CRT, and the LGBTQ agenda. Many parents didn’t like what they were seeing and demanded change but school boards, teachers’ unions, and politicians often resisted. If parents remain involved with their local schools and school choice continues to grow the power of unions and politicians will diminish—and they know it.
