NC leaders believe school choice benefits students, educators and taxpayers

RALEIGH — North Carolina is becoming a national leader in expanding choice and competition in education. For some North Carolinians, this is a source of pride. For others, it is shameful.

Our state ranks fifth on the Center for Education Reform’s Parent Power Index. In the Cato Institute’s educational freedom index, we rank 12th. By other measures, North Carolina is average, but poised to jump into the upper echelon, driven by recent expansions of our Opportunity Grants and growing interest in charter schools.

I won’t deny that there is a partisan dynamic at work. Most states that create or expand programs that promote choice and competition have Republican legislatures, Republican governors, or both. And Republican legislators skeptical of educational freedom tend to lose their primaries, while Democratic legislators who favor it tend to attract strong primary opposition (although they don’t necessarily succumb to it).

But I will have to say that, to a large extent, critics of school choice have sidelined themselves by making silly and counterproductive arguments.

It’s not that school choice is invulnerable to criticism. All public policies have pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, potential benefits and obvious risks. Program design is very important. There are better and worse ways to expand educational freedom, in my opinion, just as there are better and worse ways to implement any political change.

However, instead of subjecting school choice to normal political analysis, many critics peddle conspiracy theories. They claim that advocates intend to destroy all public schools, or resegregate schools, or use choice programs to instigate a Christian nationalist takeover in America.

These allegations are based on intentional or reckless misrepresentation of the idea’s origins and public support. School choice is a popular idea embraced by most Americans, not a fringe idea that requires an extraordinary explanation. Choice and competition have long been evident in higher education, pre-school education, health care and other areas where government funding plays an important role, but producers and consumers are free to make their own decisions about where and how services are provided.

I’ve spent my entire adult life around school choice advocates. In fact, I also spent my childhood around them, as both of my parents were public school educators who strongly advocated for vouchers and other means of expanding educational opportunities. The caricatures of school-choice leaders presented by progressive critics bear no resemblance to the real human beings I know, work with, or love.

There is no secret scheme to be revealed here, no mystery to be solved. People favor school choice because they think it will best serve the interests of students, families, educators, and taxpayers.

Academic performance is certainly part of the field. I would present a fair reading of the empirical evidence that shows that as parental choice and school competition increase, so do average test scores and educational attainment.

For example, a series of studies by Ludger Woessmann of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Martin West of Harvard University, and their colleagues concluded that countries that foster competition by channeling tax dollars to private schools tend to all other factors equal, producing higher levels. Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test scores. Poor students benefit disproportionately. “Rather than harming disadvantaged students,” they concluded, “accountability, autonomy, and choice are, for the most part, tides that lift all boats.”

These are not the only results we are interested in, of course. One of the objectives of public financing of primary and secondary education is to encourage responsible citizenship and community involvement. Choice and competition are also useful here. The authors of a recent study in Educational Psychology Review examined four civic outcomes: political tolerance, political participation, civic knowledge and skills, and voluntarism and social capital. They found that, on average, “private education increases any civic outcome by 0.055 standard deviations relative to public education. Private religious education, in particular, is strongly associated with positive civic outcomes.”

Still not convinced? Fine. Offer counterarguments. But if you accuse lawmakers of racism or call them other names, don’t expect them to listen.

John Hood is a board member of the John Locke Foundation. His most recent books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

This article originally appeared in the Wilmington StarNews: John Hood writes about school choice and education in North Carolina