▶ Key Takeaways
- School choice gives parents the power to move their children—and the education funding allocated for them—to a better alternative.
- Government schools cannot be permanently reformed while families remain trapped in a monopoly.
- Competition can improve traditional public schools because schools must respond when families are free to leave.
- Education Savings Accounts can help pay for Christian schools, private schools, homeschool curricula, tutoring, textbooks and microschools.
- Rural families may benefit greatly because purchasing power attracts new educational providers and creates options that did not exist before.
- Some Christians, conservatives and homeschoolers have been misled into repeating arguments promoted by radical teachers unions.
- The upcoming midterm election gives voters an opportunity to support candidates who will defend parental rights and educational freedom.
Our public government run schools are failing the kids educationally. And indoctrinating them from elementary school up in anti-Americanism, Socialism and radical ideology.
You can protest at school-board meetings.
You can expose radical textbooks.
You can demand that schools stop promoting socialism, critical race theory, gender ideology and hostility toward America’s founding principles.
You can elect a good school-board member.
But if parents remain trapped in the same government-controlled system, the education establishment still holds the power.
It controls the school.
It controls the curriculum.
It controls the money.
And, for six or seven hours a day, it can brainwash the minds and values of our children and grandchildren.
That is why school choice is not merely another education reform.
It is the reform that makes every other reform possible.
The system will not fundamentally change until parents possess the power the education establishment fears most:
The power to leave.
Shelly and I recently discussed this critical issue with Dr. Corey DeAngelis, one of America’s most outspoken advocates for educational freedom and author of The Parent Revolution.
Corey explained how school choice can break the government education monopoly, give parents control and force failing public schools to improve.
He also answered serious objections raised by rural families, Christians, conservatives and homeschoolers who object or fear school choice.
Here are seven things every parent, grandparent and taxpayer should know.
1. More money will not stop the indoctrination.
Whenever government schools fail, the education establishment offers the same solution:
“Give us more money.”
But the United States is already spending an enormous amount on government education.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, total expenditures averaged approximately $18,905 per public-school student during the 2022–2023 school year. Only $9,748 of that total was classified as instructional spending.[¹] The worst districts such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York spent over $30,000 per student for failure.
What have taxpayers received in return?
The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that average reading scores for high-school seniors were 10 points lower than in 1992. Average mathematics scores were three points lower than in 2005.[²]
More spending has not guaranteed better results.
It has not eliminated educational failure.
And it certainly has not stopped ideological indoctrination.
That is because the fundamental problem is not simply a lack of money.
It is a lack of accountability and an ideological agenda.
A government monopoly can continue receiving funding even when students cannot read, parents are ignored and radical ideologies enter the classroom.
In a competitive system, failure has consequences.
In a monopoly, failure becomes the justification for another funding increase.
2. The money should follow the child—not protect the system.
Under the present system, most children are assigned to a government school based on their address.
If that school is failing—or teaching values that directly contradict those taught at home—the family has limited options.
Wealthier parents may move to another neighborhood.
They may pay private-school tuition on top of the taxes they already pay.
But middle-class and lower-income families are trapped.
School choice changes that.
Instead of automatically giving education funding to a government-controlled institution, a portion of that funding follows the child.
Parents can then select the educational environment that best meets their child’s needs.
That may be:
● A traditional public school
● A charter school
● A private school
● A Christian school
● A homeschool program
● A microschool
● Specialized tutoring
● Another qualified educational provider
The education establishment argues that this “takes money away from public schools.”
But the money does not belong to the government school.
It is intended to educate the child.
If a school is providing an excellent education, respecting parents and meeting students’ needs, families may choose to stay.
If it is failing, parents should not be forced to sacrifice their child to keep that institution funded.
3. Competition can improve educational outcomes—even in public schools.
Opponents frequently claim that school choice will destroy public education.
The evidence tells a different story.
When families have alternatives, government schools face pressure to improve.
One major study of Florida’s school choice program found that public schools exposed to greater private-school competition experienced greater improvements in student test scores. The researchers concluded that the results were not simply a continuation of earlier trends.[³]
Why can competition produce better results?
Because incentives matter.
If every student—and every education dollar—is guaranteed regardless of performance, the institution has less reason to change.
But when parents can leave, schools must pay attention.
They must listen to families.
They must improve instruction.
They must create a safer environment.
They must earn the confidence of parents instead of assuming they are entitled to it.
School choice does not require every family to leave its local public school.
It requires every school to give families a reason to stay.
4. Education Savings Accounts give parents more than one alternative.
Many people use “school choice” and “vouchers” as though they mean exactly the same thing.
They do not.
A traditional voucher is generally used to help pay tuition at a private school.
An Education Savings Account, or ESA, can provide much greater flexibility.
Think of an ESA as similar to a Health Savings Account. The money can be used only for approved educational expenses, but parents can often choose among multiple services.
Depending on state law, those expenses include:
● Private- or Christian-school tuition
● Homeschool curricula
● Textbooks and educational materials
● Individual tutoring
● Specialized services for a child with unique needs
● Online courses
● Microschools
● Other approved educational programs
This distinction is especially important for homeschool families and parents whose children need something different from a conventional classroom.
Education is not one-size-fits-all.
One child may excel in a traditional classroom.
Another may need a Christian school.
Another may learn best at home.
Another may need intensive tutoring, occupational specialization or specialized instruction.
School choice recognizes something government bureaucracies too often forget:
Parents know their children as individuals.
5. School choice may create more opportunities in rural communities.
One of the most common objections to school choice comes from rural legislators and school districts:
“We don’t have private schools nearby, so school choice will not help us.”
But this argument reverses cause and effect.
Why would new educational providers enter a rural community if families have no money available to purchase their services?
When parents receive educational purchasing power, demand is created.
That demand will attract:
● New private or Christian schools
● Microschools
● Cooperative homeschool programs
● Traveling or online instructors
● Specialized tutors
● Hybrid education programs
As Corey explained in our interview, some of America’s oldest voucher-like programs were created precisely because children in rural areas did not have access to a nearby government school.
Rural isolation was considered a reason to expand choice—not restrict it.
There is also a contradiction in the argument commonly used against rural school choice.
Opponents claim nobody in a rural community will be able to use the program because no alternatives exist.
Then they claim the same program will cause so many families to leave that it will destroy the local public school.
Both arguments cannot be true.
If nobody leaves, the public school will not lose students.
If families do leave, that demonstrates that alternatives existed—and that parents wanted them.
6. Christians, conservatives and homeschoolers must not be misled into preserving the monopoly.
Opposition to school choice does not come only from liberals, socialists and radical teachers unions.
Some Christians, conservatives, Republicans and homeschool families also oppose it.
Many are sincere.
But they have been misled into supporting the same monopoly that has allowed educational indoctrination to spread.
Their most serious concern is this:
“If government money follows homeschoolers or private-school students, won’t government control follow the money?”
That concern should not be dismissed.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Every school-choice law should include strong protections for religious schools, private schools and independent homeschool families.
Participation should be voluntary.
Families that do not want government funding should remain free to reject it.
But rejecting school choice does not guarantee freedom from regulation.
State governments and Socialist / liberal politicians can attempt to regulate private schools and homeschoolers whether those families accept education funding or not.
The real battle is not between school choice and freedom.
It is between government control and parental rights.
Corey argues that expanding school choice may actually strengthen educational freedom by bringing more families into homeschooling, Christian education and private education.
That creates a larger constituency prepared to resist future regulation.
Homeschool parents must remain vigilant.
Christian schools must defend their independence.
But they should not tell another family—especially a lower-income family—that it must remain trapped in a failing or hostile school because of what the government might attempt someday.
Protect freedom.
Write strong safeguards into the law.
Fight every unconstitutional regulation.
But do not make the perfect the enemy of the good—or inadvertently preserve the education monopoly.
7. Parents must turn educational concern into political action.
Parents discovered something important during the COVID shutdowns.
For the first time, many saw what was entering the classroom.
They witnessed political indoctrination.
They saw gender and racial ideology.
They discovered how little influence they possessed over a system their taxes supported.
But awareness is not enough.
The education establishment is organized.
Radical teachers unions are organized.
T
he bureaucracies are organized.
Parents, grandparents, taxpayers and Christians must become organized as well.
Every candidate seeking office should be asked:
● Do you believe education funding belongs to the child or the government institution?
● Do you support Education Savings Accounts?
● Will you protect homeschool and Christian-school independence?
● Will you oppose ideological indoctrination?
● Will you defend the right of parents to direct their child’s education?
● Will you vote for school choice when powerful special interests apply pressure?
General statements about “supporting education” are not enough.
Every politician claims to support education.
The real question is whether that candidate trusts parents—or trusts government bureaucracies.
School choice can help turn America around
The battle over education is not merely about test scores.
It is about worldview.
It is about faith and morals.
It is about whether children understand freedom, personal responsibility, free enterprise and the principles that make America exceptional.
It is about whether parents or government authorities possess the ultimate responsibility for raising a child.
If we want to stop indoctrination, we must break the monopoly that makes it possible.
If we want better educational outcomes, schools must become accountable to families.
If we want to protect children, parents must have the power to leave.
That is why school choice matters.
And that is why the decisions we make now will affect our children, our grandchildren and the future of America.
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Action:
What you can do now:
1. Vote only for candidates who support school choice
The upcoming midterm election will help determine whether educational freedom advances—or whether the government education monopoly becomes even more powerful.
Do not vote based only on party labels alone.
Some Republicans and self-described conservatives have opposed school choice when it mattered most.
Find out where every candidate stands.
Support candidates who will give parents control, allow education funding to follow the child and protect Christian schools and homeschool families from government interference.
2. Get my book, The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream.
School indoctrination is not an isolated problem.
It is part of a much larger battle over America’s culture, institutions and future.
In The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream, I expose what is happening inside our schools, explain why educational freedom and school choice matter, and reveal how informed citizens can help turn America around.
Get my book The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream today. Click HERE to order the book online.
You can order the book on Amazon HERE.
Or get the audiobook version HERE and on Kindle HERE.
You can also get an autographed edition online HERE or by phone at 615-814-6633 (M-F 10 am to 3 pm).
You can also send a check for $26.13 (including shipping) payable to Media Specialists and send it to this address:
Media Specialists
1313 4th Ave N
Nashville, TN 37208
3. Share this article—and our eye-opening interview with Dr. Corey DeAngelis—with parents, grandparents, teachers, pastors, homeschool families and candidates for public office.
Our children’s future is too important to surrender to a government monopoly.
FAQs:
Q: What is school choice?
A: School choice allows parents to select the educational environment that best serves their child. Depending on state law, education funding may follow the student to a public, charter, private or religious school, homeschool program, microschool, tutor or other approved provider.
Q: How is an Education Savings Account different from a voucher?
A: A voucher is generally used for private-school tuition. An Education Savings Account may be used for a wider range of approved expenses, including tuition, homeschool curricula, tutoring, textbooks, online courses and specialized educational services.
Q: Does school choice force families to leave public schools?
A: No. Parents who are satisfied with their public school may remain there. School choice simply gives other families the freedom to select a different educational option.
Q: Does school choice take money away from public schools?
A: School-choice supporters argue that education funding is intended for the education of a child—not the permanent support of a particular institution. When a student leaves, a portion of the funding follows that student, while public schools generally retain funding for the children they continue to educate.
Q: Can competition improve public schools?
A: Research has found that increased competition is associated with improvements in public-school outcomes. Competition gives schools an incentive to listen to parents, improve instruction and create an environment families choose voluntarily.
Q: Can school choice help rural families?
A: Yes. ESAs can support homeschooling, tutoring, online programs and microschools even when a conventional private school is not nearby. Giving families purchasing power can also attract new educational providers to rural communities.
Q: Could government funding lead to greater regulation of homeschoolers or Christian schools?
A: That risk requires vigilance and strong legislative safeguards. Laws should expressly protect religious freedom and educational independence. However, governments, unions and liberal socialists will always attempt to regulate homeschooling and private education even without school-choice funding.
Q: Why do some conservatives and Republicans oppose school choice?
A: Some cite concern for rural schools, public-school funding or government regulation. Others face pressure from education special interests. Voters should examine how candidates actually vote instead of relying on party labels or campaign rhetoric.
Q: Why do radical teachers unions oppose school choice?
A: School choice threatens the existing education monopoly. When families can leave, schools and unions face competition, funding becomes connected to enrollment and parents gain greater influence over education.
Q: What should voters ask candidates before the midterm election?
A: Ask whether they support Education Savings Accounts, whether education funding should follow the child, whether they will protect homeschool and religious-school freedom, and whether they will vote for school choice when special interests oppose it.
About Craig Huey:
Craig Huey is a Christian, political commentator, and marketing expert. He publishes The Huey Alert and hosts the Huey Alert Podcast with his wife Shelly. Together, they stand at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture, helping Christians understand the issues shaping America today.
Sources:
[¹] National Center for Education Statistics: Public-school expenditures per pupil, 2022–2023
[²] The Nation’s Report Card: 2024 reading results and 2024 mathematics results
[³] National Bureau of Economic Research: Competitive Effects of Means-Tested School Vouchers