Andrea Hopkins with the Bristol Herald-Courier profiles Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, and his Quixotic crusade to promote school choice in Virginia’s public school system. He has submitted school-choice legislation every year for the past four years, and each time, he’s gone down to defeat.
But this year, the Axman got closer than ever before. Writes Hopkins: “A bill that would allow companies and individuals to receive a tax credit for donating to scholarship funds that could be used in public or private schools – passed the House on a 56-43 vote. The Senate let it die in committee.”
Virginia offers less school choice than almost any state in the nation. Not only do we refuse to provide vouchers or tax credits, reactionary educators even discourage charter schools within the public school system. Foes fear that any kind of competition would destroy the public school system. If they’re right… if the public school system is so grotesquely inadequate that it would collapse under the slightest competitive pressure… then maybe it should collapse.
It’s the 21st century, ladies and gentlemen. We’re still laboring under an educational system invented for the 19th century. That system is failing an increasing number of Virginia children at an increasing cost to society. If anything, Saxman isn’t going far enough. Shifting a few thousand students from public schools to private barely scratches the surface of what needs to be done. We must tear down the old system and rebuild a new one based on entirely new principles.
