School Choice and Common Core: Mortal Enemies
Michelle Malkin's column is released once a week.
By Michelle MalkinJanuary 31, 2014 3:00 AM
The freedom-enhancing, life-improving power of school choice is more than a theory for me. It's more than a talking points memo or teleprompter speech. Unlike many of the politicians paying lip service to National School Choice Week this week, the issue of expanding educational opportunity and freedom for all is something I live, breathe, practice and witness every day.
My mother was a public school teacher who taught in a majority-minority district in New Jersey for more than two decades. She and my father worked hard to put their own children in a mix of public and private Catholic schools. My own two children have been enrolled in private schools, religious schools and public schools. After a great deal of research, we moved from the East Coast to Colorado to escape the corrupted, dumbed-down curriculum of an overpriced private girls' school.
Life lesson: It's not just government schools that are the problem. Many supposedly "elite" schools indulge in the senseless pedagogical fads that infect monopoly public schools.
Every family in America deserves maximized, customized choices in education. It is the ultimate key to closing that "income inequality" gap the politicos are always gabbling about. Yet, the White House and Democrats beholden to public school unions and their money are the ones blocking the school choice door.
We were blessed to find a community of parents and public school educators in Colorado Springs who embrace high standards, academic excellence and strong character education for students of every race, creed and class