Spearheading the school voucher movement is this narrative that the best way to improve the education system is through expanded options for parents. As often repeated by supporters of school vouchers, give people the choice to send their child to whatever school they please.
Public education — a so-called failing institution — is, to many voucher adherents, in a state of disrepair because public schools have an undue monopoly on how our schoolchildren are educated.
“Monopolies are rarely a good thing,” Republican state Rep. Greg Martin said after the Tennessee state legislature passed a statewide voucher program in January. “We have allowed monopolies when it comes to education, that there’s only certain people that can tell us what’s best, and they’re those who control and benefit from it.”
This, of course, is a rhetorical trick to justify public funding of private schools and bankrolling the tuition for students already attending private and often religious academies. For most parents, especially those in rural areas, there is no choice in the so-called school choice movement.
Despite the state refusing to document prior enrollments — if a student participating in the voucher program was attending a public or private school — it is well-documented within other voucher systems that these programs largely benefit relatively wealthy households that already send their child to a private academy.