The government school monopoly is an expensive failure. As I wrote last year.
If Winston Churchill was commenting on America’s government schools instead of the Royal Air Force, he would have said, “never have so many paid so much to achieve so little.”
The good news is that more and more people understand the system is failing, which is why we have seen great progress on school choice in so many states.
The bad news is that the government monopoly continues to resist. Check out this tweet from Corey DeAngelis.
For background purposes, charter schools are basically a halfway approach to school choice. They are government funded, but can operate with considerable autonomy and they produce significantly better results than regular government schools.
But teacher unions and other supporters of the status quo resist charters just like they resist private school choice. Protecting the monopoly is always the top goal.
What’s especially nauseating in this case, however, is that the government schools in Madison County do a very bad job, even when compared to other Tennessee government schools.
And I’ll close by pointing out that this should be a civil rights issue. Madison County has a large share of minority children in its government schools. These are the kids who would most benefit by being able to opt for charter schools.
Or, even better, private school choice.
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Image credit: Ken Gallager | CC BY-SA 4.0.
