Every day on my commute through North Raleigh, I pass an apartment complex designated as Section 8 housing. It’s sprawling and in terrible condition — peeling paint, sagging balconies, missing shingles, cracked pavement, you name it. If the exterior is this bad, I can’t even imagine the interior. However, the number of elementary school children in the development fills an entire school bus. I’ve been stopped by the afternoon drop-off several times, and I get such joy watching these tiny children return home from a day of learning.
Based on what I’ve observed, I assume most of these children are probably first-generation Americans or immigrated here with their families. It pains me to think that this housing situation is the best we can offer them, but I find encouragement when I consider how many of these children may not have even had a school to attend in their home countries, much less a bus to transport them or a relatively sound expectation of safety.
Twenty-two years ago, my church youth group held a donation drive to collect supplies for a new girls’ school near an American military base in Afghanistan. We also held a coffee house-style reception with church members and families to raise money for shipping costs — a program the church still holds today to support a number of different causes each year. My heart breaks to think that this school no longer exists and what might have happened to those women.
In college I spent a summer in Honduras taking Spanish classes and working at a children’s home for boys. Honduran public school is only free through 6th grade. Most of the boys I worked with were sent to the home by their families so they could continue their education, not because they were without any family to care for them. There’s no mystery as to why gang activity is so prevalent there. Many families send their children to boarding schools the world over. But could you imagine doing that because it’s your only alternative to a life of poverty or crime?
My point is that in an era of debate about school choice, vouchers, scholarships, and ESA programs, I am so thankful that the nation I was born into saw fit to create an institution that would welcome all children. We certainly bungled it through segregation and other forms of discrimination in the last 250 years, but what a unique and fortunate gift we gave ourselves, and the rest of the world, when Americans decided that education was paramount!
Believe it or not, one can be supportive of school choice and still recognize the role and importance of public schools. Those of us who advocate for school choice need to be cautious of dismissing the value of a public education, while opponents of school choice should be equally cautious of accusing school choice advocates of being anti public school. I wholly reject the notion that the two ideas are mutually exclusive, and most school-choice advocates I encounter feel the same way. Unfortunately, the sentiment isn’t often shared from the other side.
Education is not a zero-sum game wherein my benefit automatically means you’ve lost. Just as society benefits from an educated child in the public school system, society benefits from an educated child in a private school. North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship program is an attempt to recognize this by essentially returning some of the tax dollars a family pays in the form of a scholarship if they choose to send their child to a private school. Attempting to make this program universal in North Carolina with an income-based tier system was apparently a bridge too far for many, but I fail to understand why. Only if you view education as a zero-sum game does this logic track.
All this to say, I am a school-choice advocate and support the NC Opportunity Scholarship program, but I am so beyond thankful for the American public school system and would never suggest it be dismantled. Overhauled, reformed, better managed? Sure! The John Locke Foundation released a report in September that examines the funding models we use in North Carolina, and one of its researchers has some commentary here about why NC recently tied for last place nationally in a ranking focused on enrollment policies.
If my paternal grandfather hadn’t dropped out of the 8th grade, his family would have starved during the Great Depression. Meanwhile, all four of his grandchildren were raised in American public schools and have advanced degrees. It’s incredible, and not lost on me the freedom and choice Americans have compared to those globally who seek a life here simply for the privilege of access.