“There will be no more hiding. Politicians are going to have to take a stance on parental rights from here on out. Parents are the new education special interest in town, and they aren’t going away any time soon. Politicians from all parties would be wise to take their side. After all, parents are going to fight for the right to educate their children as they see fit harder than anyone else will fight to take that right away from them.”
– Corey DeAngelis, national director of research at the American Federation for Children
By: Mark Glennon*
Rarely is anything so popular yet so neglected by politicians as school choice for K-12 education. The public has it right on what is a truly righteous cause. For society to honor its fundamental obligation to educate its youth, parents must be offered an alternative to catastrophically failing schools. Society’s future demands it. Simple justice demands it. The state as a place to raise a family demands it. And it is indeed what it has often been called – a civil rights issue.
Polls and surveys consistently show overwhelming support for school choice, which has now reached all-time highs. A RealClear Opinion Research survey this year showed support for choice at 74% vs. just 16% opposed and 10% are unsure. Support crosses party lines, with 83% of Republicans, 69% of Independents, and 70% of Democrats saying they strongly or somewhat support school choice. African-Americans, too, who disproportionately are forced into abysmal government schools, consistently say they want choice.
In short, “Education now rivals the economy” as the top issue for voters, which even the Washington Post had to admit.
It’s no different in Illinois, which has only a tiny school choice program of sorts, a tax credit scholarship mechanism capped at just $75 million annually. Earlier this year, Gov. JB Pritzker proposed to reduce the amount of the credit. But polling showed that 61% of Illinois voters support the bipartisan program, a 7-point increase since October 2020, including 71% of Black voters, 81% of Latino voters and 67% of Democratic voters.
Pritzker lost. With significant opposition to the cuts from within his own Democratic Party, the program was maintained. It was the only time in memory that Illinois lawmakers stood up to the interest group opposed to school choice – teachers’ unions.
Teachers’ unions may be the obstacle to school choice, but it might be a mistake to confuse teachers with teachers’ unions. A recent report by the conservative Heritage Foundation, based on a national survey it commissioned, found that teachers don’t share all of the radical positions of their unions and concluded that reformers may find more allies than expected among rank-and-file teachers.
Multiple factors are contributing to demands for school choice. Enraged parents are fed up with political indoctrination and woke radicalism in the classroom. They saw teachers’ unions standing in the schoolhouse door to keep them closed during the pandemic, and many parents remain angry about over-the-top COVID measures. They have seen school choice already working in many parts of the country, with more and more coming.
But the primary driver of demands for school choice is the abysmal performance of many government schools, and that failure is becoming particularly obvious in Illinois, especially Chicago.
Only 26% of Chicago public school 11th-graders can read and do math at grade level, as we recently reported. The district responded by dumbing down its standards, proudly announcing that 84% of students graduated from CPS in 2021 – a new record high.
Chicago is not alone. Abject failure is now common in government schools across much of Illinois. The Illinois Constitution says “The State shall provide for an efficient system of high quality public educational institutions and services,” but the state is simply not doing that.
Over the coming months we will be documenting that failure and addressing the details of how school choice can work. It is not a funding failure, as we have often shown. It is a failure that can only be corrected by providing direct funding to parents so they can choose the schools that work best for them. Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas explained it well when he joined Wirepoints’ The Dialogue podcast recently.
School choice should be a top issue in next year’s elections. Politicians will start listening if voters start demanding what they say they want.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Read more about the crisis in Illinois education:
- How can 84% of Chicago Public Schools students graduate when only 26% of 11th graders are proficient in reading, math?
- True inequality: In-class education at Chicago’s Catholic schools but remote learning at public schools –
- Wirepoints Podcast: The Dialogue – Episode 10 – Former Head of CPS Paul Vallas on Illinois’ Path to School Choice
- They Aren’t Telling The Truth About Illinois’ Pending ‘Culturally Responsive Teaching Standards’
- Families continue to flee Chicago Public Schools as it loses 14,000 students in 2022, more than 100,000 since 2000 – Wirepoints
- The fiscal insanity in Chicago continues. Despite $22.7 billion pension shortfall, Chicago Public Schools to add 2,000 employee
- Chicago Public Schools fiasco continues: Just half of teachers show up to class as CTU threatens strike to keep schools closed – Wirepoints
- Illinois’ regressive pension funding scheme: wealthiest school districts benefit most – Wirepoints Special Report
- Illinoisans would pay 40% less in property taxes if the state spent at levels where students perform better: Florida
- New U.S. Census data: Illinois education spending soars while outcomes flatline – Wirepoints Special Report
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
Do better performing schools even have capacity to take on an onslaught of new students? My kid’s school is literally at capacity, not a single extra classroom. How exactly will oak lawn be able to handle an influx of city students?
Fair question. Huge topic. It is among the things we will try to tackle in detail in coming weeks and months.
Yes, there seems to be a good possibility of “be careful what you wish for” in the school choice proposal.
If you want school choice then move to Indiana.
Simple as that.
Indeed. We will be looking at the program there over the coming months as we cover this.
I’m old now, but spent the 70’s and 80’s teaching in CPS while my children attended suburban public schools ( No residency requirements back then). The difference was monumental. Local control and two parent stable homes are the key to quality education. Someone will eventually cut off the $$$ and CPS will be finished!
“Someone will eventually cut off the $$$ and CPS will be finished!”
Hahahah. No one is cutting off the money. If anything, they will just get more $$$.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRzD7vfs7Qs
The lack of school choice is a feature, not a bug. Democrats seek control, as is their mindset. Their largest and most important alliance–with teacher’s unions–is the last wall that will come down, if it ever does. Democrats absolutely will not cross them unless it is their very last resort, and even then some will just go down in defeat rather than move away from that alliance. Teacher’s unions are that powerful. The people at the heads of teacher’s unions are activists. It’s their very nature. They’re not activists for your children, but for their ideology and world view. Most… Read more »
It’s a rigged game and the politicians are the dealers.
School choice already exists. It’s calling moving to a better district.
All government schools in IL are subject to the mandatory Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning standards, which is essentially CRT garbage, and all IL government teachers must be trained in wokism. All IL government schools are dominated by teacher union demands. And when schools were closed because of the pandemic, it was private schools where you had to be to get in-person learning.
As a general matter, a family with low income would find it impossible to afford to move someplace in IL that has a government school comparable to, say, the nearest Catholic school.
Chicago sounds unfixable without a “revolution.” Isn’t it true that most CPS students come from a “family with low income?” And also true that families with financial means are able to afford private schools or to leave town? SO, the voters who have to demand what they want are those with low income, no? Those are the only voters that politicians are likely to listen to in any event. Perhaps I’m stereotyping, but I don’t think of those “voters” as particularly engaged … if they vote at all. The politicians are mandating CRT, which is designed to perpetuate the underclass.… Read more »
The voters clearly don’t want school choice or they would elect politicians that gave them this choice. Maybe some day. Who knows, maybe they will offer school choice at the state level and allow all those current CPS students to attend schools in Wilmette and Hinsdale if they so desire? I’m sure everyone would support that type of choice.
Minnesota has this type of school choice. Of course now the schools are even more segregated and they are working on getting more white kids to attend school in the less advantaged areas. Though, I’m sure Illinois wouldn’t have any issues.
I assume your reference to “school choice” in Chicago means choice among Chicago public schools. Non-public schools choose whom they admit and are frequently cost prohibitive, so I can’t see how parents or students could have a choice to go to private school. Choice to go to a suburban school would probably involve legal challenges and if that choice would be upheld, there’d have to be a means to reimburse suburban districts for the additional costs. Likely the choice would be from Chicago to the suburbs and CPS would have to give up revenue to those suburban schools — so… Read more »
My point is that if school choice was ever offered to the voters it wouldn’t be in the form of allowing CPS students to attend other CPS schools. They would demand to choose schools such as New Trier and Hinsdale Central, highly rated suburban schools. I don’t believe that is what you or Mark are advocating but that it could be the end result. Minnesota offers up school choice where you are not confined to your own district. Be careful what you wish for.
PPF, voters DO want school choice. Read the article, as well as countless polls. School choice has never been made a defining issue in an IL election, and elections haven’t meant much since they are so rigged here. But times are changing. Big time.
“PPF, voters DO want school choice.” Not enough to vote in candidates that promise this change. If this issue truly rivals the economy then this will change rapidly. However, the plan or type of choice offered will impact the popularity. The more details that are offered the less popular the plan will become. This is similar to democrats shouting how popular health care reform was up until the plan was introduced and implemented. That “popular” reform cost the democrats a few seats. Would all those people support school choice if it meant people from the hood could now attend their… Read more »
The stack was similarly rigged against school choice in many places that now have it, and many more that are embracing it. You have described the political climate correctly, but it is rapidly changing.
I often wonder what result would be illuminated by a truly credible study of how functionally literate K-12 graduate actually are. Anecdotally, based on my 40+ years of various management positions – all of which included recruiting and training both hourly and salaried employees in several different industries – I would not be surprised to learn that taxpayers are spending much more than in the past, and getting a lot less for it. No one, sadly, is shocked when employers recruiting entry-level hourly help take note of how common it has become to encounter job applicants who are incapable of… Read more »
I have known a number of senior public school teachers in Illinois – the honest ones admit they are turned from eager educators into disillusioned babysitters by their union bosses. Then you have the younger Leftists, the true believers of Marxism and gender dysphoria who want to indoctrinate the children. It is unfixable.
The choice, like most all things in Illinois, is stark: Parents must enroll their kids in private school. Get away from the pagan public schools – they are abusing your child.
There has always been school choice in Illinois. Problem is if you choose private you still have to pay for public. The other problem is tax dollars cannot go to private school K-12 as per the Illinois constitution. The word voucher seems to have a stigma attached to it like it is some sort of welfare so the word Subsidy should be used like a grant. The subsidy starting point could be the minimum per pupil expenditure in Illinois which is approx $6,500 or a little higher. That amount would satisfy the educational requirements by law that are considered free.… Read more »