The people pushing “school choice” actually want only one choice
The same people banning books from schools and seeking to ban Pride flags are the ones pushing “school choice.”
Thing is, they don’t want actual choices. They want all schools to conform to their narrow vision.
Peter Greene offers some insight:
This is not about choice. It’s about capturing the education system so that young humans can be taught the correct way to behave and think. It’s about trying to eradicate a way of thinking and being that folks on the right disapprove of.
He adds:
And there’s an absolutely ridiculous piece of “scholarship” from the Heritage Foundation trying to discredit charter schools for being woker than public schools, because choice is supposed to provide a variety of educational viewpoints, except not Those Viewpoints.
When someone like Ron DeSantis or Ryan Walters tells you that he favors school choice and he also favors making illegal all references to certain “divisive topics” and gender stuff, he is telling you that all his talk about school choice is bullshit.
See also: Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Lee:
Lee made clear his preference for Christian Nationalism as the driving force for education “reform” in Tennessee in his 2022 State of the State Address.
Since then, he’s tried to force Hillsdale College-affiliated charter schools on Tennessee communities – and thanks to his hand-picked Charter School Commission, he’s succeeded in some cases.
The challenge here is not just the transfer of public money to private school operators. It’s also the use of public money for one very specific worldview – to the exclusion of all others.
Lee and his Christian Nationalist allies – some of whom have called for violent revolution in order to impose their vision on public schools – have decided they know best.
As Greene puts it:
This is not fond hopes for the day when dozens of different sorts of schools bloom and everyone can pick the one that best suits them.
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