Editor’s note: Watch this space for an analysis of the new EdChoice study coming later this week from reimaginED contributor Patrick Gibbons.
A delightful new study from EdChoice titled, “Who’s Afraid of School Choice?” documents a sampling of some of the innumerable times school choice opponents have predicted the destruction of public education due to passage of education choice programs.
Here are some predictions of doom highlights.
Here is what actually happened in terms of public-school results in these states:
If this is the end of the world as we know it, I feel fine!
You might think decades of making Chicken Little arguments and predictions on outcomes that never came to pass might deter opponents, but the study shows you would be mistaken. EdChoice’s analysis of statements these opponents made in 2021 indicate the apocalyptic rhetoric flowed freely, regardless of whether the education choice proposal was expansive, as in West Virginia, or very modest, as in Arkansas.
Ergo, if you’re aiming to pass choice legislation, you may as well go big, because your opponents will accuse you of destroying public education regardless.
