Parents’ Choice
This is National School Choice Week, with the group promoting it reminding us that they include strong public schools as one of those choices, but that there are many others. You can hear my interview with the president of the group from last Friday by going to the podcast section of KXEL.com.
Perhaps fitting then that last night, during school choice week, the Iowa Legislature completed passage of a bill requiring all schools to give parents the option of having students attend classes 100% in person. Just one year ago, such a thing was not needed, since that *was* the option…children go to school. The pandemic changed all that, of course.
As of last month, 82% of Iowa schools had that as an option…if you wanted your children to go to school 100% of the time in person, you could do that…and if you wanted your child to do remote learning for safety, you could do that.
But for parents in that remaining one-fifth of Iowa schools, including many of the larger cities, parents did not have the full menu of options, including having as normal an education experience for the student as possible. Many of these districts were in continual battle with the state regarding whether any of the classes should meet in person, and as usual, it’s the children who suffered while adults bickered. Leaders of powerful organized interests with different agendas got into the mix, and too many side issues got involved.
I’m a big fan of local control, so in one respect, having the state mandate something like this is a concern. But when the local authorities won’t act in the best interests of those they are to protect, something has to be done.
If there’s one thing the pandemic has done, it’s help parents understand more about their child’s education…letting parents have that say is the best “local control” of all.
