Regarding school choice, we need more. So, let's turn it up in 2024.

Give us more of what an anti-choice left-wing state senator called "privatizers, charterizers and voucherizers" — whom he condemned to "a special place in Hell."

Children in American schools should not make peace with underachievement simply because their parents are poor, Black, Brown, LGBTQIA-plus, disabled or incapable of affording high-tuition schools. All children deserve a shot at maximizing their highest character traits and intellectual gifts.

The stated goal of "equity" makes left-wing politicians attractive. Most sound-minded people want what's best for others. A rising tide lifts all boats.

The Democratic Party's far-left base — which uses President Joe Biden as a rubber stamp — lives in the dark ages in terms of educational freedom.

The far-left increasingly loathes earned outcomes. The movement prefers a system that excuses low performance and redistributes the fruits of success based on genetic identity and/or socioeconomic plight. Public education has institutionalized this mentality with critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion and other race-obsessed curriculums that foment division.

By blaming low performance on any child's identity, society gets unacceptable outcomes. That's why we have a crisis of failing performance metrics in schools from coast to coast. Most children in traditional public schools cannot meet low-bar state proficiency standards.

Given this banality, families need an escape from the institutional dysfunction of schools governed by the ubiquitous National Education Association.

The union, with ubiquitous state and local chapters, encourages diversity, equity and inclusion, critical race theory and other victimology coursework. It does so while crusading, in writing, against capitalism — a system that rewards accomplishment and constructive endeavors over the color of anyone's skin.

Jim Crow laws weren't the free market at work. Instead, they were regulations forcing private businesses to turn away customers for idiotic reasons.

To achieve more equitable outcomes for children — without regard for personal traits — we need more charter schools and taxpayer-subsidized scholarships. We must enable low-income households to afford costly schools. In other words, equity.

School choice could lift all students. As the outcomes provided by traditional schools underwhelm, parents are moving their children to charters at a record pace. Each time a district loses students to alternative schools, board members and superintendents are pressured by market forces to improve outcomes.

Because charters typically outperform traditional schools, the country has seen charter enrollment increase by 9% since 2019. Meanwhile, traditional school enrollment has declined 3.5%.

Stanford University's Center for Research on Educational Outcomes found that 43% of charter students this year perform better than their traditional public school peers.

It gets better in Colorado. Harvard University's National Assessment of Educational Progress — using 10 years of data — found Colorado's charter schools outperforming charters nationwide by an average of 24%.

Although it might surprise aggressive left-wing activists, the "disadvantaged," "oppressed," and "people of color" want better for their children — much like their "oppressors." This explains why Hispanic charter enrollment nationwide increased by 14% and Black enrollment by 6.3% in recent years.

Political analysts say school choice has minorities supporting 2024 Republicans in unprecedented numbers. Most Americans, of any genetic lineage, are political moderates who value their children above all else.

If far-left activists and union leaders cared about race — or diversity, equity, and inclusion — they would embrace school choice.

They would support equitable access to quality schools for disadvantaged kids. They would celebrate all those "privatizers, charterizers and voucherizers" who have greatly improved the futures of children.

The Gazette Editorial Board

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

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