Tatianna, a beloved drag queen from the second season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” created a meme-worthy moment with her tagline, “Choices.” As a fan, I’ve incorporated that one word into my daily interactions, a kind of personal exhortation for each of us to reach for a higher standard (my husband coming into the room asking, “Should I iron this shirt?” [looking over and leveling my gaze at the visible creases and wrinkles] “Choices”).
I’ve long bemoaned the fact that here in France there is a distinct lack of choices when it comes to certain decisions. Take salad dressing, for instance. Whenever I’m back in America at the grocery store, the number of choices just in salad dressing is breathtaking, with an entire aisle of different varieties, incorporating flavors from around the world. At my sister-in-law’s H-E-B market in Houston, I counted 15 different varieties just of chipotle-based salad dressing. At my local Monoprix supermarket here in Paris, however, there are exactly three choices (Caesar, balsamic vinaigrette, and mustard vinaigrette).
Sometimes choices can be a controversial topic, particularly in politics. The pedagogical framing of the woman’s right to an abortion as “pro-choice” has been key to positioning this medical procedure into as broad a coalition of advocates as possible, including medical privacy arguments as much as coaxing support from civil libertarians.
Then of course there was the recent U.S. Senate election where the choices between the two candidates could not have been starker. I can understand a Republican partisan’s desire for one’s elected officials to adhere to “the party line” and vote accordingly, but electing someone as demonstrably ill-prepared for the role of senator such as the vampire/werewolf-fascinated Walker seemed particularly egregious.
Another flashpoint in choice involves education. As a Democrat, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that it is time to change the debate regarding public school education and accept the proposition that choice for parents is going to be the future. Whereas the past model for universal public education involved sending kids to their local grammar, middle, and high school regardless of the quality in the physical campus, academics, sports, or extracurriculars, the future requires adapting education to a more flexible model involving parental choice.
Vouchers might have a negative connotation for some, but if they allow a parent to send their children to a private, religious, charter, magnet, or neighborhood school based on their needs and wants, it is difficult to make anti-choice as a policy, particularly in today’s world.
Obviously there are ways from a progressive perspective to structure school vouchers into a vehicle for the broader social good. For instance, pegging the voucher to a statewide per-pupil financial amount instead of a local property tax levy would erase the substantial disparity between poor or rural school districts and wealthier suburban districts. Another given from a progressive point of view would be to tie vouchers to expected standards. The state should require that education providers adhere to minimum standards (teachers should be credentialed, teachers should be allowed to unionize, etc.), and that some sort of academic testing be administered to track progress against state and national goals. Additional strictures in administering vouchers should include a nonprofit requirement (all of the money going to a pupil’s education should be spent on the child’s academic investment, and not make it into the pockets of shareholders of a for-profit education provider).
I have friends who have sent their kids to parochial schools who would have greatly benefited from receiving a financial voucher. The same is true for parents of particularly gifted children who want to specialize in a particular academic or artistic focus. Likewise, kids who live in rural school districts where the property values prohibit significant investment in modernizing the school building would benefit from receiving the same per-pupil investment that all other kids receive throughout the state.
It is time for Democrats to get behind the school choice option and determine the terms and standards for the future of education. The old model (no choice) is not only untenable from a zeitgeist perspective, but it has also failed to deliver results as America’s education scores continue to stagnate compared to global competitors.
We all deserve to have more than one choice in salad dressing. The same is true for education.