The Urgent Case for School Choice in Wyoming

by Wyoming Liberty Staff

In writing a piece about why school choice is the right choice for parents in Wyoming I could start by reciting a whole slew of numbers regarding graduation rates, college enrollment, academic achievement and taxpayer savings. These figures are readily available everywhere and have been discussed for years by those in the education world.

For instance, I could tell you that according to the US Department of Education Report, Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, students who used the voucher program graduated at a rate of 91%, which is 30% higher than the graduation rate of students in the D.C. Public Schools.

Or I could tell you that in Wisconsin, according to a School Choice Demonstration Project, by the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, students that participated in the Parental Choice Program graduated "on-time" 7.2% higher than their fellow students in the Milwaukee Public Schools.

I could tell you that in New York, according to a report done by the Brookings Institute and Harvard University, African American students participating in a private school choice program were 24% more likely to enroll in college as a result of receiving the voucher than their peers in the public schools.

I could talk about the economic savings Wyoming could realize by enacting school choice programs such as corporate tax credit scholarships such as those implemented via the Florida Legislature's non-partisan Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability Report, December 2008. The report states: "The corporate income tax credit scholarship program produces a net savings to the state. We estimate that in FY 2007-08, taxpayers saved $1.49 in state education funding for every dollar loss in corporate income tax revenue due to credits for scholarship contributions."

I could discuss in detail the various vehicles by which states have enacted school choice legislation, noting that Arkansas and Nevada became the most recent state to do so just this past week.

All of these things are compelling. And they are important facts about what school choice does in states where legislators allow parents this freedom.

But are they the most important reasons for implementing school choice now?

Well certainly they are important, particularly to policymakers who will want to know about the advantages of passing school reform. There are plenty. And they aren't hard to find. School choice and school reform has been happening in our country for over a decade.

But beyond all of the arguments around the potential fiscal savings to taxpayers, and the increase in academic achievement and college attendance for students, the reality of why school choice is needed is simple; public education continues to plot a failing course towards complete government centralization from the top down, and complete learning uniformity nationwide. This course is out of step with what parents want and what is best for children — and with what is best for America.

This past week in Congress, despite one of the largest single national grassroots campaign led by parents that lit up the social media platform Twitter under the hashtag #STOPHR5, the U.S. Senate Education Committee decided to push forward with a rewrite and reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, the failed federal "education accountability" scheme passed in 2002.

The federal government's new solution to this failing program? Force the states to create these "doomed to fail" accountability systems themselves, since the feds failed so miserably at it on the national level. Parents have been essentially shut out of all discussions as Republicans and Democrats move forward with this boondoggle. And that is why passing school choice now should be an imperative for Wyoming.

The only real recourse for Wyoming parents whose students are stuck in schools being tested to death several times a year, forced to study questionable curricula and who are utterly ignored by their local school districts, school boards, and the Wyoming State Board of Education is to give them real freedom; the freedom to walk away from this insanity.

School choice is one of the ways to offer that freedom. This is why school choice must come to Wyoming. And it must come soon.