Good Whippin’, Lost Teaching Opportunity

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post has a great piece today on the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Democratic Party-line on education. Here’s a taste:

The litany of more and more when it comes to money often has little to do with what, in the military, are called facts on the ground: kids and parents. It does have a lot to do with teachers unions, which are strong supporters of the Democratic Party. Not a single candidate offered anything remotely close to a call for real reform. Instead, a member of the audience could reasonably conclude that if only more money was allocated to these woe-is-me school systems, things would right themselves overnight.

He rightly lambastes them for offering more money as their only solution . . . if $16,000 in DC is not enough, what is? 

And he is correct to focus on the important role that parents play in a child’s education. 

But it’s disappointing that Cohen neglects to mention the one and only solution that actually allows parents to take charge of their child’s education: school choice. 

The education-industrial complex, Big Ed, controls the system and places a brick wall of government-school bureaucracy in the way of parents who want to be involved. Cohen’s and Obama’s call for more parental involvement ring just a wee bit hollow when the government education system is specifically designed to exclude the voices of parents and taxpayers and to dance only to Big Ed’s tune. 

School choice empowers parents, encouraging their involvement in education and making certain that their voices will be heard.   

Cohen would do well to follow his great criticism of the absence of real solutions among the Democratic presidential nominees with an explanation of the only real solution left.