STEPHEN MOORE: One Million Kids Can’t All Be Wrong

This is the dawning of the age of school choice.

The school bells will start ringing in the days and weeks ahead, but a record number of kids – especially children from low-income families – will be opting out of the traditional public schools. This year as many as one million kids will participate in public school alternatives, including voucher programs, tuition tax credits, scholarship programs, or charter schools.

That’s a good thing right?  After all, to paraphrase the famous axiom: when schools compete, kids win.

But that’s not the way the teachers unions and the education aristocracy sees it. The New York Times notes that education freedom is causing a “crisis in the public schools.”

Why? Because so many families are opting for better school alternatives. Isn’t this mass exodus from the public schools and the reign of the teacher unions, prima facie evidence that they are failing their communities and the kids?

A new study by the Commonwealth Institute in Pennsylvania finds that almost four of 10 public schools have a problem with violence, bullying, guns on the premises and other infractions. How can kids learn if they don’t feel safe?  This is a form of public education child abuse.

That hasn’t stopped the trillion-dollar education empire from striking back at school choice programs.

The Washington Post just published a front-page hit piece last week on the highly touted Arizona choice program with as many as 300,000 kids participating. It’s become a model for the nation.

The Post complains that so many kids are switching to private alternative schools and that many of the failing public schools in Phoenix will have to shut down. One school highlighted for closing its doors is Roosevelt Elementary. The Post says the community is going through a “grieving process,” and some families are “heart broken.” The school librarian pouts it feels like “death.”

Not to the parents whose kids have gained access to better schools. They’re feeling liberated.