Beats the hell out of the usual tack of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Conservatives are missing a vital opportunity to remake American education. For the first time in our history, millions of schoolchildren will not have a public school to attend in the fall. Warranted or not, coronavirus fears present conservatives with an opportunity to offer an alternative to traditional public-school education, but they have yet to propose one.
Conservatives have spent decades trying to support alternatives to public school with some success. According to the National Center of Education Statistics, the number of children enrolled in either private schools, charter schools or home-schooling increased to 10.5 million in 2016, up from 7.7 million in 1999. The number, while increasing substantially, still pales in comparison to the 47.3 million children who attend public schools.
As devastating as the coronavirus has been to the wealth and wellbeing of Americans, it has offered a valuable opportunity for conservatives to move a number of children out of the public school system permanently.
Republican governors and mayors could have enacted substantial reforms by offering financial incentives to parents to home-school their children during the pandemic. Taking funds from states’ or cities’ education budgets, and redirecting them to parents, could have been a positive change that voters might accept, especially given that most want schools to remain closed, according to a poll by the Washington Post. Sending direct funds to families also would help alleviate some of their financial pressures, especially when many must choose between going to work and sending their children to school.
The coronavirus pandemic may have destroyed many things, but the opportunity to rebuild and create a more conservative future is out there. Simply reopening the public schools isn’t the answer.
The accompanying opportunity to discredit, dismantle, and destroy the teachers unions, which are nothing more than an auxiliary fund-raising arm of the DNC by now, shouldn’t be ignored either.
- Entries
I was a special ed teacher for over 25 years so I know whereof I speak.
The unions have a stranglehold on public ed and have had so for decades. Old news? Of course.
But they would have never have gotten it if not for the lax standards at every teacher credentialing college in the land. And why are they lax? Because from the very beginning they didn’t attract exactly the best and the brightest.
In short, they were the “women’s studies” coursework of the day. I could tell you horror stories of entirely manifest idiocy and just plain dumbness and stupidity of many of these women who went on to get credentialed to teach kids.
Shit, I had to get the equivalent of two fucking Masters degrees to do what I did. Most of these dullards could barely get thru the 2/3 of a year after a BA to get their single credential.
And, of course, since they were such sheep they *ALL* were Democrats. Ergo, Unions.
One more thing: Notice I said 25 years? Cuz there was no way in hell I could have taken another 5 to get my full vested retirement.
I just woke up one morning and said “Fuck This Shit!”
As Iron Bear has said…