School Choice Doesn’t ‘Discriminate’; It Expands Opportunity Through Liberation

Betsy DeVos, the Education Department Secretary, was opposed by leftists during her confirmation period. As NICHOLAS BALLASY reports for PJ Media in NAACP Argues That DeVos' School Choice Programs Discriminate:

A coalition of civil rights organizations criticized Betsy DeVos, President-elect Trump’s nominee for education secretary, for her support of charter schools and school choice programs. 

Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said school choice programs weaken the public school system. 

“School choice is an interesting phrase because it implies that the choice that parents make is just about the school when in fact school choice really only works for those parents who have other choices – to be able to select a school across town that you think is better means that you have to have the ability to get your child to that school and the ability to pick your child up from that school.,” Ifill said on a conference call with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights last week shortly before DeVos’ confirmation hearing.

Translation: Parents who succeed in getting their child a better education should be stopped because other parents can't. This is the evil of egalitarianism: a war on excellence and success. Of course, if real education freedom existed—that is, no smothering government "oversight"—education entrepreneurs would create myriad new opportunities to cover the wide diversity of child learning capabilities and parent economic means to serve the market demand from parents who "can't." There are no guarantees, of course. But the bottom line is, anyone who denies any parent their moral right to direct their own child's education simply for equality reasons cannot claim to be "for education." The only equality that matters—the only equality that is moral—is the equal right to choose. This does not mean equal opportunity. It simply means equal right for each parent to choose from whatever options are available to them at any given time, and/or the freedom to create their own opportunities. A parent without the ability to take advantage of opportunities across town gains nothing by preventing parents who do from capitalizing on the opportunity.

The fact that some people can better avail themselves of their freedom is not discrimination. To call it that is one of the most idiotic pronouncements possible—one that only an egalitarian can come up with.

We need to challenge the whole concept of "equality" adopted by the statist egalitarians. What they mean by equality is antithetical to the equality that America is based on. Egalitarianism is tailor made for the envious, the resentful, and the kind of people who hate personal achievement so much that they'd rather see someone else fail than for themselves to succeed. What it is not made for is improved education.

Of course, Ifill has a point when criticizing existing school choice programs, from school vouchers to charters: They do limit choice. But the answer to limited choice is not to eliminate school choice altogether and throw more money and more federal control at the traditional government schools, as Ifill advocates. The answer is to expand school choice to everyone through tax credits or Education Savings Accounts and the like, while limiting government interference so as to invite increased entrepreneurialism, and move toward an eventual fully free market. This will not create “equal opportunity”, which by the nature of man is impossible short of destroying all opportunity and all freedom. But it will raise the general educational excellence and opportunities for all who have the motivation.

Let’s recognize these anti-school choice reactionaries for what they are; modern-day George Wallaces. Whereas the original George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door to keep black kids out, today’s Wallaces can be seen standing in the schoolhouse door, not to keep any kids out, but to keep all but the kids with the most well-to-do parents trapped in schools that their parents judge to be inferior or even detrimental. The moral standing of today’s George Wallaces is just as bad as the original’s.

Related Reading:

‘Unqualified’ DeVos Could Be Just the Education Secretary We Need

The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools

Newark's Successful Charter Schools Under Attack—for Being Successful

A Newark, NJ Mother Demonstrates the Educational Power of Parental School Choice