What I would like to see from school choice advocates

I have long insisted that most people would learn best outside the confines of a restrictive schooling environment. I prefer educational choice over school choice. Growing up in the government-controlled model of schooling, however, I have to say any choice is better than no choice. This means that I am generally on the same side as school choice advocates. School choice advocates have made a number of good points, but I feel they are falling well short of what I would like to see from them.

Perhaps the biggest missed opportunity is framing choice around mental health. Growing up in those schools, I saw aggressive use of emotional abuse as a motivational tool. Teachers would promote a culture of fear where students feared the consequences of getting questions wrong, having the wrong opinions, and giving teachers any excuse not to like them. More recently, I have seen studies showing that suicide rates among school-aged children tend to track the school years. Considering my personal experiences, I don't see how that can be coincidence.

The simple reality is that we are trapping children in an environment that is disastrous to mental health. Mental health problems can have serious consequences such as suicides, violence, and substance abuse. These schools can and occasionally do have lethal consequences. Without school choice, we are trapping children in schools that can kill them.

Another change I would like to see from school choice advocates is to more actively point out how anti-choice activists defy common sense. I have already pointed out some of the truly absurd arguments I keep hearing, and I'm not going to waste too much time repeating myself. There are some arguments that I would love to shove right back in the faces of anti-choice activists. These activists frequently push arguments that would be better used to promote school choice.

When talking about the LGBTQ+ community, anti-choice activists frequently insist on children being their authentic selves. For those of us who see school-aged children as more than gender and sexuality, it's painfully clear that children can't be their authentic selves in schools that are completely hostile to children diverging from the government's narrow and rigid mild. I grew up in those schools, and my teachers made it very clear that I had no right to be me. If we truly want children to be their authentic selves, they need a pathway to leave such an intolerant and abusive environment. They need choice.

Diversity is similar. A lot of people criticize government-controlled schools for pushing diversity too hard, but I don't think they're diverse enough. Teachers insist that it doesn't matter if you are black, gay, transgender, or Muslim as long as you are otherwise identical. They insist on exposing children to perspectives of mindless liberal conformists who are black, mindless liberal conformists who are gay, mindless liberal conformists who are transgender, and mindless liberal conformists who are Muslim. Personally, I don't think that's diverse enough. If we want to support diversity, children need to be able to leave schools that are clearly intolerant of mental diversity.

Another area I would like school choice advocates to look can be found in the title of my blog. We can view this issue as schooling versus education. A lot of pro-schooling arguments can easily be reframed around education. One popular pro-choice argument at least appears to be going in that direction. We should fund students, not systems. We could take this even further.

Have you heard the 90% argument? Anti-choice activists are arguing that choice funnels funds from the schools that 90% of children attend. Instead of repeating what I have said about this argument defying common sense, let's talk about reframing this argument. Without choice, we are funneling funds from children and their educations for the benefit of government-controlled institutions.

We can always take this concept further. Without choice, the government is defunding the educations of children who leave government control. This can be combined with other concerns. Should we defund the educations of children who leave mental, emotional, and possibly even sexual abuse?

Anti-choice activists have had some success framing their views around students. Some of these get ridiculous. For example, some people are trying to argue that if we care about the freedom to learn, we must trap them in an environment that tightly restricts what, where, when, and how they learn. In reality, freedom to learn can only exist if we allow kids to leave such an educationally restrictive environment.

We aren't hitting anti-choice activists with anything close to everything we can. Let's call out their lies. Let's put education above government control. Let's embrace the idea that all children deserve a healthy education, even if they can't get that in a government-controlled institution.