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“For every ten people who are clipping at the branches of evil, you’re lucky to find one who’s hacking at the roots.” — Henry David Thoreau

School choice is a polarizing topic right now. Understanding the history of compulsory education is necessary to understand why our educational system looks the way it does today. But first, let’s take a look at the roots of school choice.

This is not a new fight. Charlotte Iserbyt, former senior policy advisor with the U.S. Department of Education under the Reagan administration, issued a warning decades ago regarding the perils of school choice.

“The chairman of the Communist Party, U.S.A., 1932, William Foster, in his book Toward a Soviet America, called for a U.S. Department of Education, the teaching of evolution, elimination of nationalism and religion in schools, the teaching of internationalism, and for the use of the Pavlovian method (direct instruction) on the students,” Iserbyt wrote in her book The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. “School choice is a Trojan Horse. The only requirement left to implement school choice is tuition tax credits or vouchers which will take over the private sector. If those choice proposals do not fly in legislatures or in Congress, federally-funded charter schools will be used, as is already the case in many states, to implement the school-to-work planned economic system.”

She went on to warn that the choice proposals being recommended by most state governors will ultimately destroy all forms of education: public, home school, private and religious.

“The most lethal form of education choice is tax-supported public schools (charter schools) which have no elected school boards resulting in ‘taxation without representation.’ This is an oppressive system which caused our nation to revolt and declare war against the British,” Iserbyt said.

She predicted that all types of “school choice” will eventually be tax-supported, with the tax money following each child.

“Each child, regardless of type of ‘choice’ education, will have an individual education plan (IEP). This will be determined by decisions made by the school/business partnerships (for which kind of workforce training they have determined your child’s intelligence/talents are best suited, for their own profit-seeking purposes). This is the failed communist/socialist job quota system from which millions of foreigners escaped. These immigrants, the backbone of our nation, made enormous sacrifices to come to the United States of America in order to enjoy the upward mobility guaranteed by our free (unplanned) economic system.”

Charlotte Iserbyt was on the inside and was the whistleblower who was committed to warning Americans about the initiative to control America’s classrooms. She was the one out of 10 hacking at the roots. Will we listen?

I have said many times that school choice will not solve any problems in education; however, it will succeed in doing what it was intended to do, and that is to destroy the freedoms of private schools and home schools. It will also continue to erode the freedoms of those children and families still trapped in the public school system. Politicians who say they value freedom should never peddle school choice as a viable option for any parent or child.

I often hear parents say, “It’s my money and I want it back.” My retort to that statement is, “What is more important to you, your freedom or your money? What is more important to you, your child or the money?”

That is usually met with the following: “I want freedom to choose.”

The truth is, parents already have the freedom to choose. They can choose public school, private school or home school. With school choice, you are simply choosing more of the same. It’s still the same system parents insist is failing, funded by government. The teachers are still all trained the same and the state controls the curriculum. So, what would they be choosing that is any different?

Another argument is, “Private schools are better.” The truth is, if a private school accepts government funds then it is no longer private. I have been told that my stance is based on theory; however, there are many families from school-choice states that have shared their testimonials warning parents not to fall for this trap. Should we not listen to them? Should we not listen to those that have lived it and experienced it? Will we not listen to the whistleblowers? Are we really willing to sell our nation’s children for a pittance? The roots of school choice are nefarious. Do not fall prey to the dangling carrot.

The pièce de résistance of arguments from proponents of school choice typically resort to this: “You are selfish. Think about the children stuck in low-performing schools.” We, as a nation, need to understand that the government is not a surrogate parent. Coming from conservatives, this statement is ironic. It is virtue signaling and asking those of us who truly value our freedom to forfeit it for the greater good—and that, my friend, is a page right out of the communist playbook.

“The common good before the individual good.” — Adolf Hitler