"Sorry, but No!"

12/2015 Filed in: Education Reform

The Council for American Private Education (CAPE) just reported the opinion of Obama's upcoming new acting Secretary of Education. John King, Jr. just doesn't think private schools are very important to the public!

Specifically, when asked whether something could be done to help parents who pay school taxes and tuition, he said, "I think many families make the choice to have their child at a private school, and that’s a choice that they’re making, an investment they’re making, but we’ve got to make sure that, as a country, we are investing in our public education system. But I very much respect the choice that parents make about the school that is best for their child, but we have a different responsibility as the U.S. Education Department and as we think about our public education system.”

Now, there are all kinds of ways to qualify a statement like this, but apparently none were given. SACE is not in favor of the Federal government dictating how states should educate their citizens, but the Federal government has been in the way of states educating their children for generations through Federal law that forbids the support of religious schools. Fortunately, others are not as blind to the value of private schools as is King. As "No Child Left Behind" expires, it appears that the new version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) will insure that children in private schools who have special needs are more equitably treated by the government than they have been.

Still, we have a long way to go to see the value of religious schools presented to the public. As long as education is viewed as a secular subject, little will change… even with school choice.