School Choice and Segregation: Fact and FictionA new study shows that public schools are highly segregated, while polls reveal that educational freedom is more popular than ever.
By Larry Sand
June 2, 2022
According to a study released in mid-May by The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, “one in six students attend a school where over 90% of their peers were of the same race in the 2018-19 school year.” The publication of the report was timed to mark the 68th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision which ruled that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional.
While this may be news to some, the results are hardly surprising. For varied reasons, people tend to live in areas populated by those who are similar to them in race and class. And to complete the picture, we have a ridiculous zip-code mandated education system, which, courtesy of the Big Government-Big Teacher Union duopoly, forces children to go to the public school that is closest to their home—no matter how awful it might be—throughout most of the country.
Then, on the educational freedom front, a RealClear Opinion Research poll in February revealed that 72 percent of the respondents support school choice, with just 18 percent opposed. The results don’t vary much by race, with 77 percent of Hispanics, 72 percent of whites, 70 percent of blacks, and 66 percent of Asians expressing support.
In March, the American Federation of Children released the findings of a survey which shows that 77 percent of those surveyed support education-savings accounts (ESAs), which allow parents to withdraw their children from public schools and receive a deposit of public funds into government-authorized savings accounts with restricted but multiple uses. Interestingly, the poll finds that 75 percent of Democrats support ESAs, as do 85 percent of Hispanic voters and 84 percent of black voters.
And unsurprisingly, when any privatization measure shows promise, the teacher unionistas and their fellow travelers step up their deceitful propaganda campaign. Traditionally, their argument has revolved around money. The unions claim that “privatization siphons funds from public schools.” This is a terrible argument for so many reasons, but mostly because we should be funding students, not systems. The union’s other main talking point—used increasingly these days—is that school choice is racist.
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And now for some facts.
Regarding the siphon argument, Martin Lueken, Director of Fiscal Policy and Analysis at EdChoice, researched the actual school choice participation rates and found that it “does not have a negative effect on public-school systems or their funding. In fact, research suggests that greater take-up in choice programs leads to better student outcomes for the vast majority of students choosing to remain in public schools. Looking at these facts, it seems clear that the claims of exodus and harm caused by choice programs are greatly exaggerated.”
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Source:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/02/school-choice-and-segregation-fact-and-fiction/
