In the Old Testament, land was the basis of the agrarian economy. What land was to the people of the Old Testament, education is today. How well are we doing at providing a quality education for economically disadvantaged students?
According to The Year of School Choice by Sheryl Blunt in Christianity Today (November 2011), this past year was an incredible year for school choice:
- 41 states introduced or passed school choice legislation
- Indiana implemented a voucher program for poor and middle class children
- Ohio expanded its Edchoice Scholarship Program
- Georgia, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Florida introduced or expanded tax-credit scholarship programs
- Arizona has the nation’s first educational savings account for special-needs children
- The Supreme Court through out a challenge to Arizona’s tax credit educational program
These developments are encouraging because they provide hope for economically disadvantaged students. The current monopoly on children that the American K-12 system has on poor children not only adds extra hurdles to their educational opportunities but it also prevents them from gaining access to some of the best schools in their counties.
School choice busts up the educational stranglehold that the current educational system has on our children and empowers the children by opening the doors to quality education for the children. The cycle of poor education is broken. Children are empowered.
Transforming the system to empower parents to select their child’s school is one example of a just public policy. Educational policy is reconfigured to take the needs of the least well off in our society into account. By empowering the poor, we begin to build a more just public policy.
Such policy avenues can be 21st century examples of the Biblical mandate to seek justice. There are hundreds of verses in the Bible that make it clear that the principal goal of political life is to advocate for justice for the alien, the widow, the oppressed, and the poor. School choice is one such example.
Challenges to school choice are sure to continue. But the north star should remain crystal clear: how can we continue to reconfigure the system so that all children, including those who are living around the poverty line can not only have fewer hurdles placed in their pathways but also can empowered to live a life in which their intellectual curiosities and talents can be developed to the full? Justice demands no less.
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Unfortunately in our current society we have vastly fallen short of that principal goal for political life! We have turned more inward and become more self-serving; almost relishing in throwing the “weaker” to the wolves. A great example of this is in the movie “2012″. While the Earth is imploding and everyone is scrambling to survive (and if very “lucky”) and reach one of the arks that is going encapsulate humanity for posterity, the self-made leader of the free world (USA) wants to only give safe passage to the “leaders” and the highest bidders. He feels no shame, standing safely in this magnificent ship built by poor Chinese workers, leaving thousands or millions of his fellow humans to perish (as he watches) in the impending apocalypse! The next great line comes from the plea of a scientist, from the passion of his favorite writer, “The moment we stop fighting for each other, that’s the moment we lose our humanity.” This is a fight we cannot stop. This is a fight we will not lose!