Is the Blue Wall Against School Choice About to Break?

​As we’ve noted, the right of parents to choose their children’s schools is overwhelmingly supported by Americans from all demographic groups and both political parties.
 
There are two reasons for school choice’s popularity. The first is disgust at the performance of many traditional public schools. Public schools serving low-income and minority communities, often in inner-cities, have a 60-year track record of failing children, graduating generation after generation of illiterate and innumerate Americans who start adult life behind the eight-ball.
 
Now Joshua C. Robinson, a pastor in Pennsylvania who is the founder and CEO of Black Pastors United for Education, illustrates this point with startling statistics in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial declaring that “School choice is the civil-rights issue of our time.” Robinson writes:
 
“Among eighth-graders in 2022, 91 percent of black students, 86 percent of Hispanic students and 64 percent of white students weren’t proficient in math. In reading, 84 percent of black students, 79 percent of Hispanic students and 62 percent of white students weren’t proficient.”

Many apologists for the status quo shrug and blame the communities, the families, and the children. But it doesn’t have to be this way. A study from the Progressive Policy Institute, “Searching for the Tipping Point: Scaling Up Public School Choice Spurs Citywide Gains,” counters the idea that charter schools “somehow drain legacy schools of the ‘best’ students and resources, to the detriment of those left behind.” PPI reports:
 
“In all ten cities where charter schools ‘reached a critical mass [more than 33 percent] in terms of student enrollment,’ performance improved citywide and was significant enough to start closing the performance gap with the wider state averages by 25-40 percent.”
 
PPI concludes:
 
“Evidently, the growth of enrollment in charter schools creates a positive competitive dynamic with the traditional district schools, which have to up their game to attract parents and students.”
 
What about the overall impact of all forms of school choice on public schools? We’ve previously reported that William Alexander Salter of Texas Tech University has demonstrated that on the question of the impact of school choice –
 
“Out of 28 studies that explore this question, 25 found that school choice improves educational attainment in traditional school systems. In terms of social-scientific validity, that’s a slam dunk.”
 
And yet Democratic politicians across the board continue to stand firmly behind a special interest – the powerful teachers unions – to reject any form of school choice. For example, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania both tiptoed toward support for limited tax breaks to supply private school scholarships for low-income students. But the teachers unions were powerful enough to hold both governors over the abyss of political annihilation – and forced them to reverse course.
 
But now the pressure on politicians is coming from two directions. Republicans are making unprecedented inroads among minorities on the issue of school choice, while Democrats alienate those same minorities by standing in front of the schoolhouse door. How much longer can leading Democrats continue to resist the passionate, urgent, and increasingly angry demands of core constituencies? As the late economist Herb Stein once said, if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
 
We predict, as the evidence in favor of school choice mounts – from a progressive institute, no less – and the angry demands from families in bad school districts intensifies, that politicians’ wall of resistance will crumble. We believe powerful Democrats may soon jump on the school choice bandwagon. And when they do, their support and leadership will be something to celebrate.