If you have school-age children, you may be wondering if they’ll ever get an education. On Tuesday the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest education union, threatened “safety strikes” if reopening plans aren’t to its liking. Some state and local governments are insisting that public K-12 schooling this fall be conducted online three to five days a week and imposing stringent conditions on those students who actually make it to the classroom.
Yet there are three reasons to be optimistic about the future of education. First, many parents will be more prepared to home-school their kids than they were in the spring. They or their hired teachers will do a better job of educating children, in many cases, than the public schools.
These are the opening paragraphs of my op/ed “The Virus May Strike Teachers Unions.” Wall Street Journal, July 29 (July 30 print edition.)
I’ll post the whole thing 30 days from now.
Actually the title the Journal gave it is a little misleading. My focus in the op/ed is not so much on teachers’ unions as it is on idea that a lot of parents will find that the private educational options they choose for their children are superior to mediocre government schools. Therefore, I argue, when the pandemic ends, there will be a substantially larger home school sector and more push for charter schools.
Postscript:
There was an unusually high percentage of good comments on my op/ed on the WSJ site. Here’s one I just noticed:
In Michigan, our Governor ordered auto insurance companies to issue rebates – due to folks driving less I guess.
But amazingly, our Governor who is owned by the teachers union, gave no such order to rebate the portion of property taxes that go toward public schools. Even though there is no way teachers, who stopped in school teaching in March, provided the same level of service.
This needs to change.
Indeed!
READER COMMENTS
Don Boudreaux
Jul 30 2020 at 5:57am
Excellent op-ed, David. (Because I subscribe to the WSJ I was able to read the op-ed in its entirety.)
Reality is indeed stranger than fiction. If your thesis is sound – as it seems to me to be – 2020’s covid calamity will wind up doing more to promote school choice than was done by Milton Friedman and his intrepid efforts to reduce the power of the K-12 government-schooling racket. I do not here intend to diminish the importance of Friedman’s efforts. His criticisms of the K-12 government-school monopoly, along with his explanations of the benefits for children and families that would arise as a result of competition among schools, surely will play some positive role in sustaining the coming decentralization of schooling that you predict – as will, no doubt, Thomas Sowell’s newly published book on charter schools.
But in this case parents’ actual experiences will, as you explain, supply most of the thrust toward improved schooling.
As maddening as it is to behold the arrogance and greed of teachers’ unions, your essay allows me now, in a somewhat perverse way, to enjoy reading about, and hearing of, their efforts to prevent children from returning physically to classrooms. These “teachers” are likely overplaying their hand. Soon (again, if you’re correct) they’ll be down quite a few chips.
Yesterday afternoon I spoke with the manager of my favorite local restaurant. He’s got two young children – six and eight. He’s angry that Fairfax County school officials want to “teach” his kids on-line. “That’s crazy!” he exclaimed. Understand that this guy isn’t at all political. He’s a normal, decent guy – mid-thirties, I think – working hard in a business that is hard in the best of times and agonizing in this bizarro time.
This guy likely has never heard of Milton Friedman. But his eyes are opening to the ugly reality of the K-12 government-schooling racket. And as you eloquently explain in your WSJ op-ed, he’s not alone.
Hayden
Aug 1 2020 at 10:24pm
Just read that book by Thomas Sowell after reading your comment. Chief among the insights was that charter schools eliminated the achievement gap between minority and poor students. Of course, there may be some selection bias, but that selection bias means poor children that want to learn have a place to do so without being distracted. The teachers unions want to keep the status quo at the expense of this. Quite evil, and not only that but Sowell quotes union officials admitting to this! Cold-hearted unintended effects of unions. Despicable.
MarkW
Jul 30 2020 at 7:13am
Michigan is actually an interesting case because, governor’s orders or not, school districts are in real danger of losing funding. Here, school operating funds come from the state and are entirely based on student head counts. If parents pull their kids out of a local public school and choose a charter that offers in-person teaching, the funds go to the charter. This is the case even with virtual charter schools. If parents pull kids out of the public system and send them to private schools or home-school them, the private schools and parent won’t get the money for those students, but neither will the local public school system.
So public-school teachers here have real reasons to fear loss of funding and jobs if students leave their systems. Bonus question — will Whitmer try to extend her rule-by-executive-decree so far as to do something like ordering funds to be sent to districts based on the enrollment from last year rather than this year? Or would trying to abrogate the legislature’s budgetary role be a step too far even for her (or for the judges that would ultimately rule on the legality of such a move)?
David Henderson
Jul 30 2020 at 10:33am
Mark W,
I had no idea about Michigan. That’s tremendous news. I doubt that the governor would be able to use emergency powers to override those rules because she would essentially be doing it to pay the teachers for not working, or, at least, for working less than normal. But we’ve seen lots of emergency powers be upheld by courts, so who knows?
Alan Goldhammer
Jul 30 2020 at 9:17am
I don’t have access to the WSJ op-ed piece so my comments are indirect. In our area most of the private schools are closing for the first half of the school year as are charter schools so there is not much of an alternative. I think using any position that the AFT has adopted is a failure to take a look at what has come out in a number of scientific papers as well as the recent report from the National Academy of Sciences. From my own perspective have read all of this and much more since the end of March, I think that primary schools might reopen in a number of areas if certain criteria are met.
Here is a JAMA viewpoint on the National Academy report. A NY Times op-ed appeared today also noting how schools can reopen. Rationale for primary school openings is in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Irrespective of whether the school is public or private, there are going to be significant costs associated with reopening this fall if it is to be done safely. Professor Boudreaux’s anecdote, while interesting, ignores the science of disease transmission. It is not the students who are most at risk, but parents and older family members who may be living in the same home. Failing to adhere to prudent public health policies results in major outbreaks of COVID-19.
Mark Z
Jul 30 2020 at 12:14pm
As I understand it, it’s not as though children get infected and transmit at the same rate but just happen to be asymptomatic; they actually catch and transmit the virus less than adults. This would mean adults who interact with children will be safer than if they interacted with other adults, so opening a school isn’t as risky (even for adults teachers/staff) as opening a comparably sized workplace.
robc
Jul 30 2020 at 1:54pm
That is what Sweden has found. And other places that stayed open.
David Seltzer
Jul 31 2020 at 12:13am
The schools in our community are closed. BUT…a group of parents have reached out to tutors, retired instructors and senior students as part of an ad hoc home schooling project. I will be teaching algebra, calculus and trigonometry. My comp is pro bono with the exception of a Starbucks Americano. Nice example of spontaneous order.
Kym
Jul 31 2020 at 1:32pm
Your position in the OP/ED is ludicrous. Yes, taxes fund schools. But taxes also fund police departments, fire departments, & roads. I have never called the fire department in my life – does that mean I’m entitled to a rebate? No.
Further, even if the push for charter schools resulted in the closure of public schools,they’ll need more teachers since all public schools are gone… where do you think the charter schools would get teachers from? The newly closed public schools.
The push to end public schools isn’t about good outcomes for students, it’s about money. But education shouldn’t be profitable. Why does knowledge have a price tag? That’s how people who think they are superior continue to make themselves feel superior, regardless of whether or not they actually are.
Mark Z
Jul 31 2020 at 1:37pm
Here’s a concern I have: many private schools are being decimated by the pandemic because, unlike public schools, they have to provide a service to get paid. Michigan may be somewhat different as someone pointed out above, but generally even if the public schools are forced to go back to regular work to justify continued funding eventually (though the post office offers an example of a now redundant public service that nonetheless manages to keep getting funded), they will restart in a less competitive atmosphere, with many private/charter schools having closed permanently. I worry the pandemic may help accomplish the teachers unions’ goal of marginalizing or eliminating private and charter education.
Jim Dunning
Aug 1 2020 at 6:23pm
Mark Z has a point — there is going to be pushback, and it might be already happening. Montgomery County, Maryland is ordering private schools to close until at least October 1; the same appears to be happening in California and Texas. This will be fatal to many private schools, since they don’t have an unending (for now) supply of tax revenue to pay staff and maintain buildings.
Cato has been tracking private school closures since March and the total count is up to 107 (it looks like nearly a third of them closed in July alone).
Not only is the state forcing families to pay for that public school they don’t want to use, but it is taking away the that very expensive option.
Jim Dunning
Aug 1 2020 at 6:25pm
*meant to say “very expensive alternative.”
Andy
Aug 2 2020 at 12:50pm
Clearly written by someone that hasn’t actually tried homeschooling five year olds while working. Hiring someone is an unrealistic expense for 99% of people.
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