by Bethany Blankley
A new RealClear Opinion Research poll of 2,122 registered voters found that a strong majority surveyed support school choice and 40 percent are more likely to pursue homeschooling opportunities after COVID-19 restrictions end.
Slightly more than 40 percent polled said they are more likely to home school or virtual school after lockdowns. Before the coronavirus shutdown, roughly 4 percent of K-12 students were in home education settings.
More than 64 percent polled said they support school choice and 69 percent support the federal Education Freedom Scholarships proposal.
The majority supporting these measures are young parents between the ages of 18 and 34, the poll found.
“Every single family with kids in school has been incredibly disrupted by the lockdowns,” John Schilling, president of the American Federation of Children, said in a prepared statement. “With 55 million students no longer in their normal educational setting, families are clearly considering new options and many are seeing the benefits of homeschooling and virtual schooling.”
Of those who said they would enroll their children in a home school, neighborhood home school co-op, or virtual school, 53.8 percent were Asian parents and 50 percent were black parents.
Among the majority who support federal Education Freedom Scholarships, nearly 72 percent were between the age of 18 and 34, 74 percent were black, and 72 percent lived in an urban area.
The scholarships are 100 percent privately funded by donations and do not take taxpayer money from local public school students or public school teachers, the U.S. Department of Education states.
Of the 64 percent of respondents who said they support school choice and the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school that best serves their needs, 67 percent were between the age of 18 and 34, 67 percent were black, and 69 percent lived in an urban environment.
The American Federation for Children, which commissioned the poll, argues the findings indicate the need for education reform.
“Millions of families are seeing the inadequacies of school districts that are too inflexible,” Schilling said. “We owe it to our nation’s families and students to give them more flexibility and additional educational options.”
Among registered voters polled in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Virginia in December 2019, more than 70 percent in each state support school choice, with the lowest support of 71 percent reported in Virginia and the highest support of 79 percent in Georgia.
Nationwide, since the first school choice poll was conducted in January 2015 for the American Federation for Children, a strong majority has expressed support for school choice ranging from 63 percent to 73 percent.
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Bethany Blankley is a contributor to The Center Square.
Wait William, first you condemn anyone and everyone who protest the lock down, yet when it comes to your liberal means of public education control through brainwashing the minds of youth, you say oh no!, we should support it over home school. Sounds like double talk to me. Is this diverting the agenda of the libs? Would this be the reason you balk at voting at the ballot stations as well? You and your socialist/atheist cronies only push what’s detrimental to the rise of communism in the country while squashing everything that supports freedom. You’re so transparent its pathetic.
Public education has become a weapon for the liberal socialist/atheist agenda set out to rewrite the constitution. The dumbing down of our children by removing historical importance, God, etc. People who believe our fore fathers were idiots and that they (Liberals) are the messiah that brings the hidden knowledge newly discovered by geniuses like the previous joke of a president and his posse who almost destroyed this great nation. If the assassin Hillary would have been elected, it would have been the exclamation point to the death of America. The new faces such as the progressive movement wants to do the same but not even intelligent enough to use discretion to mascarade it. The fact of the matter is however, the american people have finally realized the lies of the dems, along with their ultimate weapon(main stream media), and it is not gonna happen. This is evident with what’s happening with the fear mongering going on about the covid19. It’s you guys pushing for economy collapse who are the idiots.
Homeschooling per se, can be okay provided that the parents are academically accredited to teach the required subjects to their children so that their children will not fall behind the curriculum that regular schools have to offer as a stipulation for their accreditation. If the parents do not have these required skills, they should either hire somebody who does or continue to enroll their children in a safe and accredited school.
Besides dealing with education hurdles, home schooled children will need to develop the same social skills as their regularly schooled peers develop in order to compete successfully in the real world.
With the covid-19 epidemic having shut down many regular schools, this is a hard nut to crack. The sooner we can safely reopen the schools the better for our children who will then have more contact with their peers and teachers.
I am grateful that when I was school-age that I always could attend either the public or private schools. I was lucky that the schools I attended in both Nashville and Rome had strong academic standards with caring teachers.
I thus worry about the present generation who not only lacked such schools but who, due to the coronavirus epidemic, have had to interrupt their schooling for at least two months and, in some cases, for the rest of the year.
We need to invest in public education instead of giving federal money away to rich plutocrats and rightwing fanatics like Betsy DeVos and Mike Pense who want to destroy the U.S.’s public education system and to betray our young people. Our children deserve better.