Schools for Tomorrow Blog

For education reformers, there have been important goings-on in Wisconsin of late, goings-on that – as far as I can tell – have nothing to do with Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers’ run for the Super Bowl.

Education Week reports today in detail on the status of online public education in the Badger State, following last month’s court ruling that ordered the state to stop funding the Wisconsin Virtual Academy.

What, you might ask, would prompt a black-robed decree that threatens to deprive thousands of students of a viable learning option?

<blockquote>The court found parents were the primary educators — a violation of a state law requiring public school teachers to be licensed. And districts who operate schools cannot receive taxpayer money for students who do not attend school within their boundaries under current law, the court said.</blockquote>

Without any specialized knowledge of Wisconsin education law, the most I can say is that the ruling reflects a narrow-minded, statist view that public education belongs not to the people of a state but to a class of self-anointed elites who hold the keys to teacher licensure. Why not judge online schools’ performance on their merits, or at least hold them to the same standard as other public schools (which, incidentally, receive much more public funding)?

Enter the absurd logic of the teachers union, which appears frustrated by a loss of dues revenue from students who have chosen to move to cyberschooling:

<blockquote>Still, Barbara Stein of the National Education Association, the teacher’s union, objected to the use of tax dollars to support what she called a new form of home schooling.

"The issue is whether a program where you don’t have licensed educators and where you don’t have students working directly with other students should be getting fully funded as though it were a quality educational experience," she said.</blockquote>

Did you read that? “As though it were a quality educational experience.” The NEA’s argument would begin to have credibility if they held failing urban (and other) traditional public schools to the same standard. Maybe, just maybe, there are quality educational options outside the narrow union prism.

I wrote a few weeks ago about the education monopoly’s stealth campaign to take down virtual education in Colorado. Undoubtedly, the same forces here are feeling empowered by last month’s Wisconsin court decision. But if they seek to bring the kind of logic to the debate that the NEA’s Ms. Stein did in the Education Week article, they should be roundly rejected.

This debate, like the one erupting from Bruce Randolph and Manual, is about freedom vs. control. May the forces of freedom prevail.

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Parental & community involvement, School choice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.