The Illusion of (School) Choice
Why School Choice is not Conservative and Homeschoolers Ought to Oppose it
School Choice. ESAs. “The money follows the child.” Tuition Vouchers. There are differences between all of these, but in the end they each mean basically the same thing (and I will use them interchangeably):
State funds, collected by means of taxation, are distributed to parents of school-age children to be spent on government-approved education expenses.
Choice, funds, escape from the public school system, they all sound really good, right? We pay property taxes, but we don’t want to send our children to the public schools funded by those very taxes, so shouldn't we "get that money back" to spend on the education of our choice?
But just because something sounds good, doesn't mean that it is. And I want to share why School Choice, especially for homeschoolers, is actually a really, really bad idea. We know that Democrats oppose ESAs, but it is my contention that Conservatives should likewise oppose them, for different reasons of course. Not the least of which is that so-called School Choice is not a conservative notion. It is actually a government expansion program.
Let me explain:
Once you pay your property taxes (unethical theft though it may be), and that money transfers into the coffers of the state, it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the state. And this leads me to 5 issues with School Choice funds (although there are plenty more):
1. The money you "get back" from the government to use for education, isn’t simply money being returned to you. It is now a subsidy, a redistribution of tax dollars paid to the state by hard working citizens. A savings account is something you put your own money into, and an ESA is not that.
2. The money you "get back" will likely be more than you paid in the form of property taxes. For example, in the state of Arizona, the ESA program pays ~$7000 per child per year. This means that in one single year, my family would receive about $35,000. I assure you that is far beyond the amount I would pay in property taxes in a year in AZ. Therefore, we would necessarily be taking money out of our neighbor's pockets, not simply "getting our money back."
3. The money you "get back" will be “returned” to you with strings attached. Someone much smarter than I once said that “with shekels come shackles.” State money for education comes with state-approved standards and regulations. This means the government has the ultimate say over your private school, your charter school, or your homeschool. For homeschoolers specifically, School Choice funding means inviting the state into your living room or to a seat at your kitchen table. And the state doesn’t belong anywhere near there.
4a. The money you “get back” makes you a publicly funded entity and open to public scrutiny. If you’re upset that your tax dollars are currently being used to teach other children secular humanism in the public schools, you can be guaranteed there are plenty of people who will be less than thrilled to know that Christian families are using their tax dollars to teach children a biblical worldview.
4b. The money you “get back” makes you a publicly funded entity, along with every other education “choice.” I have a question for you: What do we call an education that is publicly funded? We call it public education, or public schooling. If every school choice is funded publicly, what we have left is actually not choice at all. It becomes only the illusion of choice.
Newly elected Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo recently stated in his State of the State Address that he will see to it that “all education providers are held to similar standards” referring to every educational choice included in his School Choice plan. All government-funded schooling is government-run schooling. When all education “choices” are funded and regulated by the state, there is no longer liberty and choice in education.
5. The money you “get back” affirms that the state has the authority to determine what is best for a child’s education and that ultimately the child’s education is the state’s responsibility and not the parents’. When you accept government funds, you accept the concept of “state-approved” for the type of education your child receives. You, the parent, don’t actually have the final say. But as conservatives and as Christians, we recognize that the responsibility of education and discipleship belongs to the private sphere of the family, and not the public sphere of the state.
I understand that the behemoth that is the state education system is a complete failure. I understand that parents want their kids out and desire better choices for education. I understand that some education can be expensive. But the solution to these problems, for the conservative, is not more government funding and government oversight. That will only extend the problem into all education choices.
If the state system is so abysmal, what makes us think that the state funding, and then regulating every other type of education is going to fix it? It won’t. It can’t. “School Choice” is a ruse and a trojan horse. Everyone, conservatives and homeschoolers especially, would do well to forcefully say, “no thank you.”
“Making the fox the paymaster of the henhouse guard is just a slower version of the same story.”
For more on this topic:
Israel Wayne explains quite clearly Why School Vouchers are Bad for Conservatives
Deb Fillman and Nicki Truesdell discuss School Choice and its many implications in this very helpful conversation
Toby Sumpter makes the compelling case that School Choice programs are a means of government expansion
The president of HSLDA, James Mason, discusses his objections to ESAs based on “likely possibilities” which he considers “necessarily speculative” because of his experience with law, parental rights, and homeschooling