Can we finally dispense with the fiction that the American public education system is anything but a jobs program for low achievers?

Yes, we all have fond memories of some teacher or another from our days in school. Back in the day, the public school system was an elevator into the middle class, although it was never as good as we would like to think. For every good teacher there were 4 mediocre ones and at least one really bad one. 

But at least you could count on anybody graduating from a public school to have a good grasp of basic mathematics, the ability to read and write, and a reasonable sense of how our Constitutional order works. In other words, the public schools served their function. We weren't trying to create intellectuals but rather people prepared to be good, productive citizens who could climb the social and economic ladder. 

Frankly, we don't need that many intellectuals anyway. Recent history shows that overproducing intellectuals--especially those of modest intelligence--is a net negative for society. 

https://t.co/phIlumDMxu pic.twitter.com/Yyi4SLIQmm

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) October 21, 2024

Public schools no longer serve their basic function--at least not where it counts. Middle and upper-class kids will get a decent education no matter what, as long as their parents want them to. Any decent teacher--and there are still more than a few--knows that parental involvement is the most important variable in student achievement. Plenty of kids could skip school and spend time reading at home and practicing mathematics and come out more prepared for life than a public school kid, provided their parents ensured they put in the work. 

Talk to any home school kid, and you will wonder what they do in public schools all day. These kids can learn more in 2-3 hours a day with their parents than kids who go to school all day. 

COVID-era policies stripped the veil away. Parents got to see how awful public schools are, and school choice took off. Parents from disadvantaged areas have wanted a choice for a long time but were stymied by powerful unions and politicians who were able to tap into middle-class nostalgia for their time in school. 

Mayor Brandon Johnson blames Chicago's problems on "white supremacy"

No, this is not an SNL skit pic.twitter.com/BqhdmsU9vy

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 10, 2024

The entire city of Chicago is now run by the public school mafia--Brandon Johnson, the Mayor, was a union leader there. And it is a disaster, as are the schools themselves. 

Thousands of people have been hired at the Chicago Public Schools over the past few years, fueled by $2.8 billion in federal covid relief funding. Now the money is gone, but no one wants to reduce the workforce, and an ugly budget fight has plunged one of the nation’s largest districts into a financial and leadership crisis.

The new teachers, aides and school nurses, officials say, were desperately needed even before the pandemic extracted a severe toll on the city’s children. But no one in the district has a plan for how to keep paying them.

The mayor is pressuring the school system to consider a $300 million high-interest loan to cover short-term expenses, and he’s tried to oust the schools chief, who won’t go along. The teachers union is fighting any cuts while also pushing for new hires and big raises. This month, the school board resigned en masse rather than fire — or back up — the chief.

The public schools DESPERATELY needed more employees, we are told, because the schools suck eggs. This is the perfect government solution, one of the only places in the world where we reward failure with more resources. The worse you do the more money flows your way. 

We incentivize failure. 

“This is what it looks like when you burn a district down,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. “It is a level of dysfunction that feels beyond destabilizing, enough to make people lose confidence in the system.”

Soon after the federal government approved a historic $190 billion in covid relief funds for schools, experts warned school districts across the country that it would be risky to use the one-time funding for ongoing expenses. Some districts opted to spend their money on discrete projects, such as improving facilities or contracts with tutoring companies. But others, including Chicago Public Schools, said the need for new staff was acute. For years, the system has been underfunded, and the district saw an opportunity to rectify that.

Schools are always underfunded, we are told, but that is a lie. As enrollment declines employment goes up, and it's not even teachers that get hired. Schools are trying to become a one-stop shop for ruining kids lives, and at least in that they are doing a great job. They are pushing kids to become alphabet activists, anti-semites, and global warming activists. 

All of this is unfolding as the district negotiates a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union, which has proposed annual 9 percent raises and hiring new staff — totaling more than $10 billion over four years, the district says. The district countered with 4 to 5 percent annual raises. None of these expenses are in the current budget.

The union and the mayor say that Martinez has not tried hard enough to get the state of Illinois to provide extra money, as some other states have done for their schools. Under a previously negotiated agreement, the state’s school spending is rising each year, but not enough to cover the end of the federal funding.

America has always, and for good reason, been dedicated to ensuring that every child gets educated. It is good for society and good for the citizens. You can't be ignorant and climb the ladder. You need to be able to do math and read, and no society can long succeed with a population that is a rabble and not able to think clearly. 

Middle and high schools across the country have stopped assigning full books—and by the time students get to college, reading a challenging text can feel overwhelming. @rosehorowitch reports on the college students who can’t read books: https://t.co/b8pzG44SPV

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) October 21, 2024

These days, though, our public schools are often not places where education is a high priority. There are good public schools, of course, which generally serve affluent parents who willingly vote for higher taxes in exchange for performance. But even these schools are beginning to fail as the next generation of teachers are poorly educated themselves. 

The system is broken, even if not all schools are. And there is no good way to reform the system without putting it at risk. School choice is a good first step. 

The public schools are Boeing. School choice will give us a flourishing SpaceX alternative.