Progressives have many, MANY wrongheaded ideas about the economy, incentives — and generally “what works” and HOW it works. But there’s one area that particularly galls me — perhaps the most evil Democrat policy of all — their fanatical opposition to school choice.

There is NO rational reason to oppose giving parents such choice. The results have been proven to usually be superior for students — and never worse. The article below discusses some of these studies, and is worth reviewing.

But the Democrats’ allegiance (at least the Democrat LEADERSHIP’S primary concern) is the health and wellbeing of education unions and their members. If that means minority urban kids are limited to a substandard education in dangerous schools — so be it. The KKK fully agrees!

BTW, many Democrat blue collar and poor parents DO want school choice. But their party does not. And for too many such hapless folks, by continuing to vote Democrat, they are demonstrating that their party loyalty is more important than their kids’ future. Or perhaps they just don’t connect the dots.

In general, studies comparing public vs. private/charter schools reach one of two conclusions (depending on how ideologically liberal the researchers are).

1. School choice improves the lot of kids who take advantage of it.

2. School choice works no better than government monopoly schools.

But here’s the thing — NO reputable study (even biased studies) concludes that school choice — especially private schools — provides an INFERIOR education. This is a KEY point.

Here’s why: Education vouchers and/or tax credits provide as good or better an education than government schools — at a significantly lower cost. Every kid that chooses to take advantage of vouchers/tax credits reduces the cost of “public schools.” Hence there is no rational reason to continue this government monopoly — at the very least, we should offer students and their parents lower cost school choices.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this cost disparity is our nation’s capital. It has a pathetic little voucher option for a few hundred students — picked by lottery from a FAR larger pool of hopeful qualified applicants.

The D.C. education vouchers are for $7,500, though only about $6,700 is actually expended per student on their private schools. Contrast that with the $23,000 per student D.C. district outlay for government centers of learning.

BTW, the “per student” cost of public schools is grossly understated. Progressives love to use just the A.D.A. per student cost figure, but there are dozens of other “target” funding sources for school districts. Plus they don’t count local funding in the form of school bonds. School district costs begin at $10,000 per year per student — not counting school bonds and other local funding.

But there’s more. Not included in the per student public school cost is the antiquated, redundant COUNTY school boards. They teach few students (they might have a small “wayward student” school), but they can spend a LOT of money to little classroom benefit.

Our San Diego County Board of Education has an annual budget exceeding $450 million! Good luck finding budget info on their website — a PR puff website that hides the budget info in a sub-menu not easily located. And even then you have to “thumb” through the auditor’s report to get the (outdated) information.
http://www.sdcoe.net/business-services/internal-business/Documents/Audit%20Report%2012-13.pdf — page 15

And let’s not forget the budget for the California state public schools bureaucracy — not to mention the cost of the U.S. Department of Education. None of that is counted in the cost per student of a government education.
Even socialist SWEDEN has concluded that school choice is best — they’ve offered universal school choice (including religious schools) since 1992, and even their Socialist Party has since concluded that it’s a good idea. Many other countries have some form of school choice.
http://riderrants.blogspot.com/2012/11/swedens-school-voucher-system-is-model.html
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Here’s the UnionWatch article I recommend. Not too long or wonky. Indeed, it takes apart several education labor union straw man arguments.

http://unionwatch.org/debunking-the-debunkers/