Is school choice an 'attack' on public education?

The disruptions of the pandemic frayed familiar routines and fueled an appetite for more education options. As a result, more than two-thirds of people support school choice, according to recent polls, and states are expanding educational choice programs at an astounding rate.

This all seems rather innocuous and, well, predictable. Teachers union leaders, however, see in school choice the nefarious handiwork of a shadowy cabal. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, for example, described the push for educational freedom as a “privatization movement” bent on “destroying public education.”

Given that U.S. public schools spend $17,000 per student and have added staff at many times the rate they’ve added students in recent decades, one might snarkily conclude that the privatizers are doing rather a poor job of it. But the school choice debate has featured plenty of snark. So instead, as I point out in my book, The Great School Rethink, it’s perhaps more useful to appreciate why such complaints are misguided and misleading.