John Goodman points out that while the left are extremely vocal on the issue of income inequality, they are largely silent on the issue of reforming the public education system to create equal opportunity for all students.
Here is the uncomfortable reality:
1.Our system of public education is one of the most regressive features of American society.
2.There is almost nothing we could do that would be more impactful in reducing inequality of educational opportunity and inequality overall than to do what Sweden has done: give every child a voucher and let them select a school of choice.
3.Yet on the left there is almost uniform resistance to this idea or any other idea that challenges the power of the teachers unions.
He tells how newly-elected New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio is opposing expansion of some of the city’s best charter schools:
Among the 870 Success Academy seats blocked was a modest 194-student expansion for Success Academy students in Harlem to move into a new middle school. That triggered days of searing press coverage pointing out that those 194 students, all low-income minorities, were coming from a school, Success Academy 4, that killed it on the new state test scores, with 80 percent of the students passing the math test, and 59 percent the English test. The co-located middle school (P.S. 149) the mayor is protecting ….. 5 percent of students passed the math test, and 11 percent the English test.
Read more at Silence of the Left – John C. Goodman.
Hat tip to John Mauldin.