Watch: Thanks to Teachers Unions, Families are Fleeing Traditional Public Schools with Corey A. DeAngelis

Reason is a libertarian magazine that covers daily events from a libertarian perspective.

“There’s a messed up set of incentives that’s baked into the K-12 public school system where they get your money regardless of whether they open their doors for business,” says Corey A. DeAngelis, director of school choice for Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason. “Teachers unions had an incentive to keep their doors closed.” Frustration with the slow pace of school reopening is driving parents to look for alternatives to traditional, residential-assignment schools in historic numbers. Over a dozen state legislatures are considering bills that would massively expand publicly funded school choice options ranging from increasing the number of charter schools to education savings accounts (ESAs) to “backpack funding,” in which public dollars follow kids to whatever schools they attend. The pandemic, says DeAngelis, may well accomplish what decades’ worth of white papers and school reform activism never did: an education system that puts student needs ahead of teachers unions and education bureaucrats.

Chris Spangle is the publisher and editor of We Are Libertarians, a news site and podcast that covers national and Indiana politics from the libertarian perspective. Spangle previously worked in marketing for the Englehart Group on behalf of the Advocates for Self-Government. He also served as the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Indiana and producer of the Abdul in the Morning Show. He now works as the web director of a nationally syndicated morning show.

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