Opponents of education freedom, facing a series of legislative defeats, have responded by going off the deep end with conspiracy theories and crackpot fables. The formula works something like this: start with tortured and incomplete reading of the research on school choice which ignores a large majority of the findings and studies. Add a fabricated history of the K-12 choice movement that ignores the likes of Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill, and that implicitly requires you to believe that such prominent left of center luminaries such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jack Coons, Stephen Sugarman and Howard Fuller (among many others) were either knowingly or unknowingly part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. The bards singing this saga also want you to ignore the fact millions of Black and Hispanic families have voluntarily entrusted choice schools with the education of their children. This vast right-wing conspiracy is a racist vast right-wing conspiracy meant to destroy public education!
Quite appropriately, neither lawmakers nor teachers seem to be buying much of this double-plus good duck-speak. EdChoice and Morning Consult released conducted a national survey of K–12 teachers. In addition to hopeful signs of optimism regarding the teaching profession and some signs of improvement in student behavior and absenteeism, the survey found strong support for ESA policies:
Public school teachers send their children to private schools at approximately twice the rate of the general public. Little surprise there, as they have a front row seat to district dysfunctionality. The Ed Choice survey also shows strong support for vouchers, charter schools and open-enrollment policies. Despite a non-stop agit-prop effort by unions, most teachers support families having options.
