{"id":1664060,"date":"2022-09-29T09:23:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T13:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1664060"},"modified":"2022-09-29T09:24:55","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T13:24:55","slug":"john-stossel-school-choice-winning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/john-stossel-school-choice-winning\/","title":{"rendered":"John Stossel: School Choice Winning"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjohn-stossel-school-choice-winning%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1664060&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<aside id=\"aside1\" class=\"left aside-wrapper aside-wrapper-950\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Finally! Now more states will let parents use their tax money to educate their kids at a school they choose.<\/p>\n<p>In Arizona, families can get $6,500 to spend on private school, tutoring or even home schooling.<\/p>\n<p>The education establishment is horrified &#8212; especially teachers unions. They don&#8217;t want competition.<\/p>\n<p>But competition makes us all better. The Ford Model T was a breakthrough. But it&#8217;s lousy compared to what we have today. That&#8217;s because carmakers compete to make <em>better<\/em> cars.<\/p>\n<p>But American education has barely changed since the days of Henry Ford. Kids still sit in a room, watching a teacher at a blackboard.<\/p>\n<p>For my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FfigsiTrz5s&amp;feature=youtu.be\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">video<\/a> this week, I debate a union leader.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s David Walrod, president of the Fairfax, Virginia, chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. The AFT has been controlled by union boss Randi Weingarten for 14 years. I once provoking her by saying, &#8220;Unionized monopolies like yours fail!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are not a unionized monopoly!&#8221; she replied. &#8220;Folks who want to say this &#8230; don&#8217;t really care about kids.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Weingarten won&#8217;t talk to me anymore, so I&#8217;m glad Walrod would.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s wrong with giving parents a choice?&#8221; I ask. After all, competition makes us try harder.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I compete directly against you, I have a vested interest in doing better than you,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t that <em>good?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Not in education,&#8221; he replies. Parental choice would just &#8220;duplicate bureaucracy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But his schools are already drowning in bureaucracy. They spend $16,505 per student! That&#8217;s more than $300,000 per classroom. $300,000 would fund <em>several\u00a0<\/em>good teachers, but the bureaucracy prevents that money from going to actual teaching.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Any ideas you have for lowering bureaucracy &#8212; you&#8217;re not gonna hear any disagreement from the teachers union,&#8221; says Walrod.<\/p>\n<p>But his union supports the complex rules that protect every teacher&#8217;s job.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Teachers that aren&#8217;t up to snuff <em>should\u00a0<\/em>be let go,&#8221; says Walrod.<\/p>\n<p>But the school&#8217;s human resources handbook makes that nearly impossible. Fairfax schools spent more than $70,000 on lawyers trying to fire a teacher they considered incompetent. They failed.<\/p>\n<p>Another reason some parents want to escape government-run schools is because during the pandemic, many stayed closed while private schools reopened.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are definitely valid arguments to say that some districts played it too cautious,&#8221; Walrod admits, &#8220;but we were dealing with an ongoing health crisis &#8230; CDC guidelines.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I push back. &#8220;Seems like you were eager to embrace the CDC&#8217;s message &#8230; so you didn&#8217;t have to go to work!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Online teaching was harder than in-person teaching,&#8221; Walrod responds. Really.<\/p>\n<p>Attitudes like that are a reason 5,000 students left Fairfax public schools during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Another reason was: hard-left indoctrination.<\/p>\n<p>Fairfax paid Ibram Kendi $20,000 for a one-hour Zoom presentation on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox5dc.com\/news\/fairfax-county-schools-defending-20k-presentation-from-anti-racism-scholar\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">racism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Fairfax parents want their tax money spent this way. But I bet not all do.<\/p>\n<p>If parents want their kids to study critical race theory, wear masks or learn that America constantly oppresses people, they should be able to choose a school that offers that.<\/p>\n<p>But they should have a choice.<\/p>\n<p>Choice would allow families to &#8220;take their children to institutions that best align with their values,&#8221; says education researcher Corey DeAngelis.<\/p>\n<p>Walrod had told me, &#8220;Public schools have consistently outperformed charter schools.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When I asked for evidence, he said, &#8220;Look in educational policy journals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some studies have found that school choice hasn&#8217;t raised test scores.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s &#8220;cherry-picking the evidence,&#8221; says DeAngelis. Most studies found test score gains.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, &#8220;Public schools actually upped their game in response to competition.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That was an unexpected benefit.<\/p>\n<p>After school choice was allowed in Washington, D.C., <em>both<\/em> charter and public schools improved. That&#8217;s a win for kids and taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Government-run schools spend over $30,000 per year (per student) in D.C. The voucher&#8217;s only about a third of that,&#8221; says DeAngelis.<\/p>\n<p>There aren&#8217;t many reforms that bring results like that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For a long time &#8230; the only special interest group was the teachers unions,&#8221; says DeAngelis. &#8220;Now there&#8217;s a new special interest group in town: parents.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finally! Now more states will let parents use their tax money to educate their kids at a school they choose.In Arizona, families can get $6,500 to spend on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1664062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1664060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1664060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1664062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1664060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1664060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1664060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}