Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.
Those debating reforms to American education should remember this memorial to Sir Christopher Wren, architect of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. Wren is buried inside his masterpiece with no marking other than the inscription: If you seek a monument, look around.
Some education reform advocates are starting to wonder whether the long battle to increase parental choice in schooling (among other things) is really making a difference, particularly in light of the growing criticism of public charter schools. Despite recent victories giving students more opportunities in education, Robert Pondiscio recently accused reformers of “cowardice”—of having lost their will to fight.
Yet in states around the country, families and advocates still struggle on students’ behalf. Parental choice in education has seen great successes, and stories of students’ changed lives and parents’ acts of courage are all around us.
Let’s start in Washington State. In 2015, a successful union lawsuit shut down the state’s new charter school law. Prior to the ruling, unionized Seattle teachers went on strike just as the school year began, leaving charter schools the only public schools in the city open for business. District schools forced students to stay home, disrupting their education and family lives while charter school teachers showed up ready to work. Earlier this year, lawmakers and parents banded together to change state law yet again in order to keep charter schools operating—a victory for reformers. Now sights have turned to Mississippi, where Governor Phil Bryant is defending charter schools from opponents trying to close them down.
North Carolina lawmakers removed the state’s charter cap in 2011, causing a “boom” in such schools, according to the Charlotte Observer. Attention has also recently been focused on Massachusetts, where parents and advocates are gearing up for a ballot initiative in November enact a similar change. A recent poll shows that parents support lifting the charter cap by a 3-1 margin.
Charter schools are just the beginning. In just the last two years, lawmakers in almost two dozen states have introduced nearly forty pieces of legislation to create or expand public and private learning options through education savings accounts. Parents can use the accounts to simultaneously choose multiple opportunities—such as online classes and personal tutors—to customize their children’s education.
Lawmakers in five states have created such accounts since 2011. In Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi, children with special needs can use them to pay for educational therapies and private schools. And legislators in Arizona and Nevada passed far-reaching provisions that allow hundreds of thousands of children from different walks of life to access these accounts.
The Goldwater Institute and the Institute for Justice successfully defended Arizona’s education savings accounts from a teachers’ union challenge in 2014, and now the Institute for Justice is defending Nevada’s law from similar litigation. Around the country, there seems to be plenty of fight left in these reformers.
These successes at the state level are not lost on Congress. Senator John McCain has introduced legislation to allow Native American students attending Bureau of Indian Education schools—some of the lowest-performing schools in the country—access to education savings accounts. Former presidential candidate Ted Cruz introduced a similar education savings account bill for students in Washington, D.C.
The Fordham Institute—Pondiscio’s own institution—hosted an event last month featuring a report card ranking two dozen private school choice opportunities in various states. It shows that the number of private school choice options in the U.S. has doubled in the last six years.
One can only conclude that “reform has lost its mojo” if one ignores what’s happening in every one of these states. Opposition to expanded educational opportunities might make headlines, but it will only slow us down if we let it.
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in a slightly different form at Education Next.
Jonathan Butcher is the education director at the Goldwater Institute and a senior fellow at the Beacon Center of Tennessee.