Arianna Huffington supports school choice?
Sounds like she does.
We mentioned this article briefly in passing over the holiday weekend (in a link from Democrats for Education Reform), but in case you missed it, Ms. Huffington’s article, “So We Can’t Have Single Payer for Health Care, But How About Single Payer for Education?” is definitely worth a read.
Comments about healthcare aside, Ms. Huffington actually does make the case about the urgent need for education reform.
It’s time we start looking at education reform in bold and different ways, to stop protecting little parcels of partisan turf and start thinking outside the box. To consider the possibilities. To look past our own political backyards at what might lie on the other side of the mountain.
What I see on the other side of the mountain is a single-payer education system.
Yes, it appears the Ms. Huffington is advocating for education vouchers- having existing education funding follow the child- regardless of where they go to school.
In a single-payer education plan, the federal government, in conjunction with the states, would provide an education allotment for every parent of a K-12 child. Parents would then be free to enroll their child in the school of their choice.
Imagine that- a system where PARENTS, not bureaucrats make decisions about where best to educate their child. A system where we are truly funding education- not simply funding schools.
We applaud Ms. Huffington for recognizing the need for real education reforms- reforms that put kids and parents first- not unions and bureaucracies. The time for these changes are now. Our children deserve more than grown ups playing politics with their futures.
What Abraham Lincoln said in his second annual address to Congress in 1862 applies powerfully to today’s education crisis: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present…. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”
And when it comes to saving out children, there is not a moment to waste.
