Imagine being required to use the dry-cleaner in your neighborhood, even if you prefer the services, prices, and quality of the one across town. That’s the scenario that most American parents are in when it comes to sending their children to public school. For the most part, they are prisoners of their neighborhoods, required to send their children to the assigned school even if it is not a good fit.
National School Choice Week, which runs Jan. 22nd to 30th, aims to draw attention to this injustice with more than 16,000 events highlighting how parents should be allowed to choose the school that best fits their children’s needs and wishes.
Limited options for school choice do already exist. In the video below, Creighton University Professor Diana Thomas explains the different ways school choice is offered around the country. The video is part of Learn Liberty’s On Demand Program called Getting Politics Out of Education that details the controversies over school choice and the hurdles it faces in gaining more widespread acceptance.