The root cause of education crisis

A recent op-ed by The Advocate newspaper questioned whether “School Choice” and the “political plea to let the state money follow the child” was just “Campaign Rhetoric” that fails to address the root problem of poverty—as Louisiana’s child poverty rate is the second highest in the nation—and that “economically disadvantaged students face much greater challenges and achieve lower educational outcomes.” They closed by “demanding specifics from candidates on what they propose to do on education—as poverty has profound impacts on children who don’t have the family support so vital to success in school.” So, let's “get under the hood” as they suggested.
First, poverty is not the root cause of Louisiana’s education crisis—it is only a symptom of the problem. The root cause of our education crisis in Louisiana and America is the intentional political destruction of the Family Unit over 50 years ago with (1) the implementation of a welfare system that pays women to have children out of wedlock—to not work—and which gives them Food Stamps, Healthcare, and Section 8 Housing, and (2) the removal of God from our Public Schools. With no father in the house, the well-researched odds are very high that a single parent will fall into poverty with a lack of discipline in the house. With no God in the house or schools, the odds of a lack of morality increase substantially.
Second, our political leaders and Teacher Unions want control over the citizenry so that they are totally dependent on the government. A study of all Marxist regimes shows that the destruction of the family unit and the removal of God/religion are key pillars of control.
Third, a nationwide study (see “Credo” Report) shows a huge learning gain by Charter Schools over union schools that has been tracked over 15 years now. The study is one of the largest ever conducted, and their latest study (2023) shows that “black and Hispanic students had some of the largest gains and that they advance more than their “traditional public school” peers by large margins in math and reading”, and that includes children in poverty regardless of whether they are black, white, or Hispanic. The Wall Street Journal did a recent op-ed on the above Credo Report and closed by saying “Normally results like this would trigger a movement to expand charters and increase their funding. But that won’t happen because unions will fight to keep up their near-monopoly. The real reason the unions object to more is that charter learning proves there's no excuse for failing children.”
Since there is no longer an excuse for failing children, we should demand specifics from candidates on what they propose to do about School Choice.

Steve Gardes is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) with over 40 years of public accounting experience.