Today marks School Choice Week, a time when advocates of educational freedom highlight and promote the value of school choice. As the last few years have taught a lot of parents, it’s better to have options than to be stuck, subject to the whims of any single institution.
The premise of school choice is relatively straightforward. If your local, traditional public K-12 school is serving the needs for your child, great.
But if it’s not, it best serves the interests of parents, students, teachers and communities as a whole for educational institutions to exist that can help students thrive.
For some, that may be a public charter school that receives scrutiny from local or state school boards but is given more flexibility than traditional public K-12 schools.
For others, it may be a public charter school that specializes in distance learning.
For others still, it may be a private school, secular or religious, independent of the influence of politics by way of public school boards.
Some schools may have specialized programs exposing students to the arts, others the sciences, others careers in computing.
Promoting school choice is fundamentally about promoting the broadest array of options possible, because, as everyone knows, kids are different, with different needs, interests, strengths and weaknesses.
Here in California, students, parents and teachers could use a renewed focus on school choice. It ought to be recognized for the scandal it is that California consistently ranks near the very bottom compared to the other 50 states on standardized tests.
It must also be recognized that even before the pandemic, barely half of students were meeting the state’s own standards in English language arts and even fewer met them in math. With prolonged school closures, especially when compared to the rest of the nation, students who didn’t have access to in-person learning have not only missed out on critical socialization, but they also experienced learning loss.
Last year, California reported that just 48.8% of students statewide met or exceeded English language arts standards, while just 37.3% met or exceeded the state’s math standards. That’s down from 51% in English language arts and 39.7% in mathematics in 2019. And of course, lower income, Black and Latino students have fallen even further behind.
Related Articles
Editorial: In-House Opinions on Greenland from SoCal representatives Editorial: Los Angeles unions declare war on job creators Editorial: Newport Beach takes its own wrong path on housing Editorial: Trump’s increasingly unhinged bluster on Greenland Editorial: Remember the great Lysander Spooner Despite the state of California spending massive amounts of money every year on public education — no doubt a lot of it lost to redundant administrators and catching up on pension debts — California’s education system is failing to do what it’s supposed to do.Again, California is underperforming by its own standards and in comparison to virtually every other state in the country.
Big-spending teachers unions, and politicians desperate for their financial and political support, are to blame for this disaster.
School choice is the cure for what ails our education system. That’s why the teachers unions want to crush it. That’s why they have demonized advocates of school choice as “privatizers.” That’s why they work so hard and spend so much to elect and re-elect toadies on school boards and in the Legislature up and down the state.
Until Californians put students ahead of union interests, this travesty will continue.
Students, parents and teachers deserve school choice.
A version of this editorial was published in 2022
Hence then, the article about national school choice week holds up a mirror to the failure of our current k 12 system was published today ( ) and is available on The Orange County Register ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( National School Choice Week holds up a mirror to the failure of our current K-12 system )
Also on site :
- 2010s Rock Band Announces Tour for 10th Anniversary of Debut Album
- Greenland hit by power outage, strong winds in wake of US tensions easing
- Numbrix 9 - January 25