Who is pushing it?

FULL FEATURE

School choice has been around for decades, but it has seen a resurgence in the last half-decade and has gained the momentum of a freight train. And like a freight train, it has rolled over anyone who objects. State homeschool organizations and parents are holding the line to protect the historic freedoms they have enjoyed for so long. So how did school choice become the movement of the century? The simple answer is that powerful special interests got on board and began driving the train. It is not a grassroots movement that has finally come into its own (like the original homeschool movement of the 70’s and 80’s). If you dig deep enough, an alliance of political/social elites and world powers is revealed that is inexorably pushing private and homeschooling toward elite/government control – whether state, national, or global.

Let’s consider who is pushing school choice, from the neighbor who loves the idea of a little “extra money” for her homeschooled children, to the well-intentioned legislator, to the political and corporate players with questionable motives, to global organizations that are using the movement as a means to consolidate global power.

Some proponents are woefully uninformed about what is actually a very complex issue. Others oversimplify it as a way to gain support. Parents have their heads down, just trying to figure out how to get their kids out of a broken system; they don’t dig deeper into what looks like a lifeline. Legislators, some driven by compassion, others driven by political agendas, feel it is the duty of the government to pay for all education options. They assure the public that any “kinks” will get worked out at a future date or that concerns raised by state homeschool organizations are alarmist. Others are determined to destroy the corrupt teachers unions and to see the broken public school system dismantled by starving it of cash or students. They either don’t know, or refuse to see, that the collateral damage of publicly funding private and homeschools will ultimately destroy all education freedom and true choice

Other supporters of school choice funding are businesses (curriculum publishers, pop-up providers, entrepreneurs, etc.) and private schools that stand to profit from school choice legislation. School choice legislation is tied to  a list of “approved providers” who have filed the appropriate state paperwork to be eligible to receive public dollars in exchange for their product. It is worth noting that a system of approved providers typically required by school choice legislation immediately limits a recipient’s choices to those approved by the government. Getting on an approved provider list captures state funding for any business willing to meet the many state requirements. The homeschool curriculum market is replete with Christian publishers who, after decades of catering to homeschool parents, are secularizing their curriculum to cater to state requirements. Other publishers are dissociating  their religious from their non-religious publications in order to qualify a segment of their product list for public funding. Anecdotally, in Idaho we are finding that providers are raising their prices because “homeschoolers get state money” from programs like the Empowering Parents Grant. Curriculum providers are even developing pricing structures for “funded” versus “unfunded” purchases.

Private schools are following this same pattern in states where school choice legislation allows families to use public dollars for tuition. Some states have seen private school tuition rates climb as much as 40% (see here and here and here and here) and recently, in Oklahoma, as much as 350%! Why do we see this phenomenon? Because private schools see an opportunity to profit from public dollars.

It looks something like this: XYZ private school charges parents $5,000 tuition. School choice legislation gives parents $4,000 dollars to spend on educational expenses, including tuition. Looks helpful. Parents only have to pay the remaining $1,000, right? Well, actually it doesn’t quite work out that way in reality. The private school raises their tuition rate by 40% so that what once cost $5,000, now costs $7,000. They “capture” all the public dollars given to parents and a lot of private dollars, while not pricing their typically wealthier customers entirely out of the market. Doing the math, parents still have to fund $3,000, but that is better than all $5,000, right? Sure, but parents have none of that education money left over and still have to pay for uniforms, transportation, and all those extra costs out of pocket. That kind of tuition bill still leaves private schools out of the reach of lower income families. (Note: studies show that school choice doesn’t actually help struggling families get out of failing schools (see here and here and our What Does it Actually Cost article to see why school choice disproportionately helps wealthy families). But let’s get back to the fact that the private school raised their tuition to capture an additional $2,000! And that was with just a modest increase. The money available in the “market” increases with school choice funding, and private schools consistently change their fees to capture that additional money. After all, it would be foolish to leave it on the table. Is it any wonder that many private schools are vocal advocates for school choice legislation?

Now we begin to see the real influencers behind the curtain of the school choice movement. Why, after decades of voters saying “No” to school choice legislation, have modern advocacy organizations, funded by elite donors, made this such a priority? And why is school choice legislation largely pushed by conservatives? What is going on here?

Here is a  simplified look at which special interests are actually at play:

It is remarkably common for these organizations to use their donated money as a tool of political influence, to control the narrative around their pet causes in order to affect elections and network with like-minded organizations. Dick DeVos (wealthy husband of former Secretary of Education Nancy DeVos) prominently and publicly advocated for the use of money to manipulate political agendas. “And so while those of us on the national level can give support, we need to encourage the development of these organizations on a state-by-state basis, in order to be able to offer a political consequence, for opposition, and political reward, for support of education reform issues.”

Simply put, these organizations use money to force their preferred agenda onto society. This includes mechanisms of reward and punishment for local legislators who do or don’t do their bidding. In Idaho, that influence was in the form of large contributions of school choice special interest and PAC money poured into advertising campaigns to oppose legislators who voted against school choice bills. These dollars shifted the balance of power in the Idaho legislature, ushering their preferred pro-school choice candidates to primary victories.

So, what draws these special interest groups to the school choice movement? After all, these elites and their organizations seem more interested in dismantling the public schools than in fixing them. What do they stand to gain from this push to tie private education to public dollars? One possible motive is simply profit. As noted above, there is a lot of profit to be made when the public dime is driving it. 

Besides the opportunity for profit, there is evidence that of a more sinister agenda behind the curtain. It is becoming increasingly clear that they are selling the school choice solution precisely because it will capture the private education market they currently don’t control. The global push to move all forms of education – including private and homeschools – under the umbrella of government funding is a real and present danger see The UNESCO Connection. Funding is an incredibly powerful tool of control. And the biggest actors in the school choice movement are closely tied to global interests like UNESCO. School choice is the ultimate testing ground for the effectiveness of funding as a means of control and helps globalists determine the price of educational freedom in America.

The closer one looks, the more it becomes obvious that school choice is not a grassroots movement. It is a top down movement that is forcing the passage of school choice legislation in states in spite of the objections of those most knowledgeable and directly impacted by its implementation: homeschoolers, state homeschool organizations, and taxpayers. When you start looking for how these connections play out in Idaho, it is like pulling back the curtain on a stage performance, to reveal a cohort of special interests directing the actors. And they all lead to global elites and UNESCO. Here’s an overly simplified look at the very basic connections at play in Idaho.

SAY NO TO PUBLIC FUNDING OF PRIVATE AND HOMESCHOOLS!

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