A Rebuttal to a School Choice Legislator

Get ready to be schooled, Representative Myers...

Lord have mercy. I opened up Twitter yesterday and stumbled upon an opinion letter in the Warren County Record entitled, “Giving parents options is the free-market approach to education.” The author is a Missouri State Representative. The worst part about his letter? He represents rural Missouri.

Let me start by saying that Representative Myers is no expert in education. He is retired law enforcement and owns a garage door installation business. In my research, I found that he appeared to have no stance on public schools until he was elected to the House. Most of his bills cover emergency services, so the Representative is definitely not in his wheelhouse when discussing education policy and that was evident in the letter that looks to have been written by ChatGPT.

You can read the Representative’s letter if you like, but I bet you can tell me the talking points before you even open it — they are the same lame, tired, boring talking points the school choice lobbyists always use.

“School choice for everybody!”

“A free-market approach!”

“Competition breeds innovation.”

Except, it doesn’t. None of those things apply to schools or learning. We can’t use business models in education— not in schools. Especially not rural schools.

Rural towns don’t have Starbucks to compete with the gas station coffee because there is no market for expensive coffee. We don’t have a Target to compete with the Dollar General because there aren’t enough folks to support the retailer. And, we don’t have private schools to compete with our public schools because there are not enough children to build or staff another school. Market solutions don’t work when there is a tiny market.

Rural towns usually can’t support two schools, and most of us don’t want two schools. We support our local public schools. We are proud to be the Warriors and the Wildcats. Small town proud. Representative Myers ignores his constituents on that point.

In the letter, Representative Jeff Myers said, “School choice provides families with the flexibility to choose the best educational environment for their children. This could mean traditional public schools, charter schools, private schools, virtual schools, and homeschooling. The key is putting the power back into the hands of parents…”

Parents in his district already have those options and the power to make decisions for their children. They can choose to homeschool. They can choose to drive their kid out of district to a religious school. They can choose an online school. All of these things are available, but Myers thinks Missouri taxpayers should be on the hook for choice, even if that “choice” is a religious school.

A point that Myers does not speak to is that his own district has schools already on a 4-day week because they can’t recruit or retain teachers with such low pay. How will adding another school by siphoning taxpayer funds from the already defunded public school fix this issue? It won’t.

*Missouri is dead last in starting teacher pay and 49th in the country, only behind Arkansas, for rural teacher pay.

Representative Jeff Myers’ own party has defunded Missouri schools down to 49th in educational funding, only sending .75 for every local tax dollar to schools. That means public schools are counting on a local tax base, homes and businesses, and in rural areas, that’s tough. It’s also the most inequitable way to fund schools.

If the GOP supermajority wanted to fund schools and teachers, they would. We have over two BILLION in the budget surplus. Rather than looking at how we can make public schools better for all children, the Missouri GOP has introduced a voucher scheme to siphon taxpayer money to private schools. Rather than lifting up every Missouri child through a free and fair education, Missouri Republicans line the pockets of the private school lobbyists and donors.

We must fully-fund public schools in an equitable way for all children to have the opportunity that a public education promises. Rural students and our small communities count on public schools. School choice and privatization schemes purposely funnel public tax money into private hands. That’s harmful to rural Missouri public schools and to our kids. 

I’m positive Representative Jeff Myers knows that.

~Jess