In this year’s must-watch California gubernatorial election, Republican nominee John Cox has taken aim at the Left’s botched handling of the Golden State’s education system.
Cox claims that money raised from Proposition 30, a large tax increase pushed by now-outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown and passed by a majority of voters in 2012, has been funneled into the pockets of administrators and faculty rather than invested in the education of California’s students. This is due to the excessive control politicians and teacher unions have on how money raised for education is spent, he claims.
As a native Californian brought up and educated in the state’s schools, I have firsthand experience with their legendarily under-performing education system. And, having suffered through that experience, I can say that Cox’s solutions to the failures of the California education system are applicable not only in my state, but in other states languishing under similar Democratic policies. Indeed, Cox says his experiences with education in the Democratic stronghold of Chicago have shaped the very solutions he now proposes for California’s schools.
Cox would like to return power over education expenditures back to parents and increase school performance by fostering the growth of a free-market model.
Cox advocates for a fiscally conservative approach to education expenditures rather than further overburdening taxpayers and throwing more money at California’s public universities. Cox believes these universities should instead seek to cut spending by instituting a variety of cost-saving measures, such as having professors teach more classes.
Cox’s proposal runs counter to the standard Democratic Party line across the nation, which is to always increase education expenditures in the hope that this will provide a better return on investment. Unfortunately, this approach hasn’t made public universities in California any more likely to uphold the First Amendment or welcome students of all political orientations.
Cox has also made no secret of his support for charter schools and homeschooling as ways to increase competition among schools and give parents more control over their children’s education, respectively.
I am, in a way, the beneficiary of similar alternatives to public education. I was able to apply for admission into a selective high school “academy” geared toward preparing students for careers in the medical field. I was also able to apply to, and attended, a “law academy” where multiple law-themed courses were offered with the aim of recruiting students to a career in law. In fact, the Bay Area-based high school I attended offered enrollment in classes tailored to students pursuing future careers in the engineering field, in addition to offering courses within this “law academy.”
Without this sort of flexibility and diversity in terms of educational pathways, I would never have been exposed to law, nor would I have gained the passion I currently hold for it. Unlike so many other students in California and other “blue states,” I had the opportunity to shadow attorneys at their places of work and participate in programs such as mock trial and moot court, precisely because such career-oriented pathways existed within the public school system.
Charter schools also have the potential to offer similar advantages because they often have the ability to determine their own curricula without being bound to those mandated by the state. In light of my own educational experience, I see charter schools as a viable alternative to traditional public education.
Cox’s advocacy on behalf of homeschooling also aligns with my observations from within the public school system. Throughout high school, I was always impressed by my home schooled peers who were not only socially well-adjusted, but also outperformed their publicly educated peers. They certainly were not worse off for being educated at home at the discretion of their parents.
The Left — politicians and teachers’ unions included — despises charter schools and homeschooling because it deprives them of the ability to control what students learn and grants them a greater degree of ideological independence. If students are busy learning the practical skills necessary to succeed in their future careers, they will have much less time to be spoon-fed the standard liberal orthodoxies about race, gender, and sexual orientation — all of which have little relevance to the world of business.
John Cox is pushing for the right solutions for California and the Left’s tired and failed education policies. Instead of throwing more money at a problem money can’t fix, we should, as a nation, agitate for cheaper, more innovative alternatives for getting children the education they deserve. This means taking the control of what students learn away from the irresponsible and ideologically motivated and electing those like John Cox.
