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A newUCLA studyestimates that over 17 million students in nearly 900 different school districts have been impacted by battles over critical race theory (CRT) between September 2020 and August 2021. That is nearly 35 percent of all K-12 students. Similarly, states and districts nationwide have beengripped by conflictsover policies and reading assignments dealing with LGBTQ issues. And it has all been happening as Americans have fought, often bitterly, over masking in schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In many cases, progressives have been losing these fights.

Headlines such as Republicans Are Once Again Heating Up the Culture Wars and How did Republicans turn critical race theory into a winning electoral issue? showcase the development of culture war into a powerful weapon for Republicans. Fourteen states, including South Dakota, Florida, and Texas, have already passed restrictions, typically vague, on teaching divisive concepts in public schools.Seventeen other statesare currently considering similar legislation. Meanwhile,bans on booksdelving into racial and LGBTQ+ issues have reached a fever pitch. And, of course, there was Glenn YoungkinGlenn YoungkinReynolds response hammers Biden for 'weakness on world stage' Vodka, pensions, sister cities: Governors move to punish Russia Progressives keep losing in education they need school choice MOREs gubernatorial victory in Virginia, where hisfirst major actwas to end the use of inherently divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory in public schools.

For progressives, this is likelyfrustrating, even frightening. As Kentucky state Rep. Attica Scott (D) said about divisive conceptslegislation in Kentucky, "Im worried that it is an attempt to erase our history. Our history of struggle, of civil rights of rising up and resisting and creating policy that takes care of people."

How can progressives protect themselves from this onslaught? Rather than relying on winning political warfare with conservatives, which basically guarantees endless battles over what public schools will teach, they should embrace school choice. They should do so both because it would be a much more stable way to access progressive education no need for endless political combat to get it or keep it and because it is simply the right way to deliver education for a free and equal society. No one should have to defeat their neighbors to have their basic values respected in the raising of their children.

A reflexive objection for progressives might be that in recent decades school choice has typically beenassociated with Republicans. Perhaps this is because conservatives have more often felt marginalized by public schools. Or maybe they simply have believed more in freedom in education.

Whatever the reason, there is no compelling reason progressives should not support choice. Indeed, there was a time, not that long ago, when prominent progressives embraced school choice as a way to empower the politically dispossessed, especially minorities. Yale law professor James Forman Jr. has, in fact, proclaimed that when it has come to school choice progressives got there first.

There is much truth to that. In 1968, Harvard Graduate School of Education DeanTed Sizer released aProposal for a Poor Childrens Bill of Rightssupporting choice for the poor who had too little political power to make public schools work for them. Civil rights leader Cesar Chavezsupported alternativesto public schools, understanding that all families and children have diverse needs and desires. Polly Williams, an African American Democratic state representative, wasa major force behind the nations first voucher program,created in Milwaukee in 1990.

All families desire an education consistent, or at least not starkly at odds, with their core values and identities. But as theUCLA studyrightly understands, Students own rights to learn about these issues will now be dependent on the local systems they are inand in some places, on who wins school board elections. In other words, whether students get what they need will be decided by who wields political power.

It should not be this way. For their own sake, progressives should start demanding school choice. But even more important, they should do it for the sake of free and open society.

Neal McCluskey directs the Cato Institutes Center for Educational Freedom, where Solomon Chen is a research associate.

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Progressives keep losing in education they need school choice | TheHill - The Hill