(Originally appeared in The Republican Journal.)
The recent Nashville school shooting, along with tragically too many others, is raising a national debate. My question is: “Would banning guns or school choice be a better answer to reducing school violence?”
Banning guns has obviously been proposed many times, but this may be the first time you hear school choice proposed as a possible answer to school violence. Let’s compare the two.
If a law banning guns would work, why doesn’t the law that prohibits shooting children in public schools work? It is already a crime to shoot children in public schools, but criminals don’t obey that law. Sadly, it is the same way with guns.
Criminals don’t mind violating the laws and will get guns from somewhere, but the result of the ban on guns would mean millions of law-abiding citizens would not be able to have guns for self-defense, hunting and sports.
On the other hand, universal school choice — where the money follows the child to the school of their parents’ choice, whether public or private, religious or non-religious — would allow millions of parents to put their children in Christian schools.
I believe that Christian schools, if allowed to teach Christianity and other peaceful religions, could teach students to honor their parents, not lie, not cheat or steal and to love their neighbor as themselves, I believe bullying could be reduced in voluntarily chosen Christian schools. I also believe corporal punishment could be administered with parental consent and would reduce the horrific level of violence and teacher disrespect in the current public schools.
The public school system in Texas is not able to achieve more than a roughly 50% rate of children who read and do math on grade level. I have talked with many teachers who are afraid of the students in the schools because of the lack of discipline and are leaving the teaching profession in droves.
Let schools create the kind of environment they think would be best for children. Then we let the parents choose their children’s school based on where they think their children would learn best. We would impose real accountability on all the schools by allowing the parents to leave and take their money and their children when they feel the school is not doing a good job.
If someone wanted a transgender sympathetic school for their children, they could choose such a school. If another group of parents wanted a traditional-values school for their children, they could choose that. Instead of fighting each other, we would allow freedom for each other.
This is how the religious wars in Europe were solved, with each group of partisans getting their share of school money for their children to go to the schools of their choice. This competitive system in Europe produces higher student achievement as well as ending the religious wars.
Isn’t it time for America to adopt universal school choice? I believe so.
Allan E. Parker Jr. is a former professor of education law and represented school districts for six years. He is currently president of the Justice Foundation in San Antonio, Texas.
