With each passing day, California’s political and educational establishments dramatize the importance of school choice. Even for those without children in public schools, supporting parental authority would help produce better-educated youths to enter the workforce and participate in a prosperous, and evolving, economy.
Traditional public schools get guaranteed funding and have a captive customer base – laws require youths to attend school. That isn’t lost on the teachers unions, which dominate such schools and steer curriculum and policy. They collect enormous sums of money in dues, using it to push legislative allies to eliminate competition like charters, which aren’t as heavily unionized.
And since the government-imposed coronavirus lockdown, which closed most public schools, legislators and unions have shown just how willing they are to pursue that objective.
The public is starting to get wise. Waiting lists for charters are swelling nationwide, including in Southern California. Gradually people are realizing student performance at alternative schools historically surpasses – often by magnitudes – that in traditional public schools.
