School choice: It’s a term that has been making the rounds in the cultural discourse, particularly since the school closures in 2020. On the surface, giving parents and students more opportunity sounds good, but have we truly considered all of its potential consequences?

What Is School Choice?

Most generally, school choice “allows public education funds to follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs,” as EdChoice explains. For many families, this makes a variety of educational opportunities more accessible, especially when the average annual tuition for U.S. private schools is an eyepopping $12,350.

However, with all the hype around this topic, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve gotten carried away with an idealized conception of school choice, not considering its possible unintended consequences.

Before I go further, though, I should note that this article is not a condemnation of educational freedom. In fact, my concern about school choice grounds itself in a deep desire for freedom.

An Example From Wisconsin

To explain my thinking here, it’s helpful to consider an example from the past few years. Historically, Wisconsin has given homeschoolers relative freedom. As the Homeschool Legal Defense Association notes, homeschoolers in Wisconsin have some regulations and reporting requirements, but on the whole, they have a lot of flexibility within those rules.

This, however, is not mere coincidence. As in many states, Wisconsin has a homeschooling parents association that works to both keep parents informed and maintain those parents’ homeschool rights.

In 2015, the state of Wisconsin passed legislation that would allow homeschoolers to participate in public school sports (something that some states permit, and others do not). The main qualifier was this: To enter their child into an athletic team, homeschooling parents had to provide written affirmation that their student met the team’s standard qualifications (academic, age-related, and otherwise).

Beyond this, homeschoolers might be required to provide other information, including “the results of a sports physical, permission for medical care in an emergency, and other health related information in addition to academic and disciplinary information.”

The Wisconsin Homeschooling Parents Association (WHPA) opposed this legislation. Surprising? Perhaps. But in the WHPA’s own words:

Turning over homeschooling records to their local school district, including disciplinary, academic, and health records, is not something that has been asked of Wisconsin homeschoolers since before 1984.

WHPA strongly opposed this legislation because this sets a precedent of homeschoolers reporting to their local school districts and the possibility that this oversight, initially applied only to homeschoolers wishing to be involved with their public schools, could be applied to all homeschoolers.

In other words, such laws may begin to encroach on parents’ privacy and freedom to educate their children as they see fit.

Of course, this is only one example from one state, but it indicates why homeschoolers might reasonably question school choice legislation.

Is School Choice a Trojan Horse?

At first glance, school choice makes perfect sense: Tax dollars should follow students to whatever school they attend (public, private, homeschool, or otherwise).

However, most tax-dollar spending is subject to regulation. Food stamps can only be used to buy certain items, education grants have eligibility requirements, and public schools are subject to specific rules set by states.

So in fairness, taxpayers’ hard-earned money shouldn’t be used without specifications around how it can be spent. But what does this mean for homeschoolers or parents seeking alternative educational options? Will parents have to prove their fitness to teach their children or obtain a license from the state? What will states demand parents, private schools, or microschools report about their students? How much power will the government have in the private education landscape?

Even for parents who are able to keep up with changing or complicated regulations, the question is, at what cost? What does the state have a right to know about how parents choose to educate their children? And how can we guarantee that these regulations wouldn’t be used to make educational choice arduous—or even to bully well-meaning parents?

After all, it wasn’t that long ago that parents in the U.S. were being arrested for homeschooling.

In the case of Wisconsin, the core of the issue was parents’ being able to homeschool freely, without the burden of regulation. And school choice could easily result in added regulation for families who opt out of public education.

Only time will tell if school choice will be the Trojan horse that opens the gate of homes, microschools, and other private educational options. But at the end of the day, it’s worth considering which policies and programs will offer parents the most freedom and opportunities for their children.

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Image credit: Public domain