School choice is on the Trump Administration’s to-do list, and it behooves us to consider its value or lack thereof from the standpoint that every other demographic group examines public policy. Jews ask, “Is it good for the Jews?” Feminists ask, “Is it good for women?”
We should ask: Is school choice good for whites?
In framing the debate this way, we instantly throw out all the arguments in favor or opposed to school choice which have no direct, tangible benefit for white children and families. Organizations such as Leadership for Educational Equity, advocates such as Sen. Ted Cruz, and others who argue that school choice is “the civil rights issue of the 21st century,” have no place in this conversation. Nor should we get sidetracked by occasional, throwaway references to poor whites. Like the pro-socialism and pro-miscegenation Warren Beatty movie Bulworth, in which the protagonist argues at length against large corporations by positing that they are bad for blacks — oh and they’re bad for poor whites too — much advocacy for school choice gives only trite lip service about how school choice may benefit white kids. The bulk of what they argue for, however, is with non-whites and other minorities in mind.
See also my review of Hillbilly Elegy, a book about Appalachian whites which gives lip service to how we should help poor whites but undermines the sense of real political or cultural identity that would be necessary for their uplift. The book, like Bulworth and other cultural products which lump in the white working class with minority protected classes, is disingenuous. If the powers-that-be had the interests of the white working class in mind, they would have dealt swiftly and harshly with the epidemic of black-on-white crime, outsourced jobs, and illegal immigration, which all disproportionately harm white working-class Americans.
Arguments that are simply anti-liberal also need to go bye-bye if they are unrelated to the well-being of whites. During the recent nationwide commemoration of School Choice Week, I saw tweets along the lines of: “Look at the dumb liberals who argue for choice in abortion but not where kids go to school! Haha! LOL!” That is not a good reason to support school choice. It’s simply a snarky exposé of alleged liberal hypocrisy. But we’re not interested in exposing liberal hypocrisy — that’s what the so-called conservative media is for. And look at how much good they’ve done over the past three decades. Of course liberals are hypocrites. It isn’t relevant to whether or not school choice is good for whites.
Arguments that don’t pertain to the well-being of white kids and families need to be completely discarded. We need to look out for our own first, second, and last. This is the determinative question: Is school choice good for white kids, their families, and their communities?
Full disclaimer: I do not profess to be an expert on this issue. I do not work for any public, governmental educational system. I have no vested interest in the outcome of this policy issue over and above that of the average American citizen. As a matter of fact, our kids have never spent a day in any public school. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t important for homeschoolers and students at private and parochial schools. In fact, in a way they should be the most concerned about this issue. They have the most to lose should their hard-earned refuges be invaded in the name of “choice” and “equality.”
There are many definitions of what constitutes school choice. Click here to see what the National School Choice Week organization defines as school choice. The options range from the edifying — such as homeschooling and magnet schools — to the alarming — such as public schools with enrollment that crosses district lines, and vouchers to put low-income students inside high-tuition, high-standards private schools.
There are two primary issues to consider when determining whether school choice is good or bad for whites. First, its effect on local white communities. Second, its effect on students and teachers in individual schools and school districts.
The first issue might seem odd to some readers, but bear with me for a moment. As America is set up today, people can self-segregate simply by moving to one location or the other. If I don’t want my kids to be submerged by Chinese culture, values, and people, I don’t live in Chinatown. If I don’t want my kids to be surrounded by Bloods and Crips, I don’t live in the ‘hood. In many metro areas, the lines between the ‘hood, Chinatown, and the white suburbs are literally nothing more than a certain street. On one side of the street is one part of town. On the other side of the street begins the other part of town. In some locales the dividing line is wider, but in no place that I’m aware of is there an impenetrable, physical dividing line akin to the Berlin Wall.
Many school districts have diverse demographic compositions. That is due both to legal requirements and to the natural composition of the area. By law, school districts are supposed to be desegregated. The same is true for individual schools. In the South, many schools and districts are still — decades after the Civil Rights movement — under court orders that mandate forced integration via school busing. Other parts of the country suffer less onerous controls, but nonetheless are under intense subtle, and often coercive, pressure to diversify (i.e. have fewer white students).
However, in many cases the dividing lines between school districts line up more or less with demographics. It is thanks to this fact that white people have found a way around anti-white policies by simply moving and finding work in less-diverse parts of the nation. if you can’t or won’t make the move to Vermont, Montana, rural Kansas, or Alaska, all you have to do is to leave the suburbs and move to the exurbs — the small communities of whites that have formed in a ring further away from the metro core than even the suburbs. Out there, the school districts are almost always predominantly white, and under the control of elected school board members who are also predominantly white. It is de facto segregation of the legal and ethical kind. Keep in mind that other ethnic groups do the same thing by grouping together in other areas, where they too enjoy educational self-determination and self-governance. It allows majority-black schools to educate according to their own values, and promote their own identity and culture. It allows majority-white schools to do the same. That’s appropriate and fair.
School choice may severely cut into our ability to choose what kind of people, and environment, we want our kids to grow up in.
There are several ways to exercise school choice. They vary in terms of geographic distance, and in terms of the scholastic spectrum. In the first category is the question, “How far away can I send my kid?” If my student lives in Detroit, can I send him an hour away to a mostly-white school in the Detroit exurbs, in a different school district? Depending on what the federal or state government policy is, the answer to that question may be “yes.” In that case, your average white kid in the ‘burbs or exurbs may find himself sitting next to the average black kid from the inner city. Anyone with questions about how that will work out should consult the Color of Crime report or the crime section of your metro newspaper. Anyone with questions about how many aforementioned inner city dwellers will end up in said white school should look at how eager Mexicans have been to infiltrate the United States. Where whites have earned more money and created a better environment, our neighbors from other demographic groups will be eager to come and partake of it themselves.
In the second category is the question, “Can I send my student to a private or parochial school?” Again, depending on the law that the state or federal government puts into practice, the answer may very possibly be “yes.” In which case your average white kid — whom you worked so hard to move out to a decent neighborhood, and pay extra tuition to put him into a decent, safe school — will again be sitting next to Trayvon. The public school teacher unions and the anti-Christian, atheist organizations are working day and night to prevent this from happening, but the truth is that white cuckservatives drool over the prospects of having the inner city schools empty out and for all those students to suddenly show up at private or parochial schools. You know, because once they sit in school desks on the “magic dirt” of majority-white public, religious, or private schools, they’ll become hip-hop Hawthornes and Hamiltons.
By letting students come in from outside school district lines, or switch from public to private schools at no cost to the parent, the residents of majority-white school districts will exercise less control over the direction of their public school system. To be fair, they don’t have a whole lot of control over it at the moment anyway thanks to the power of the federal government, the teachers’ unions, the atheistic lobby, the multicultural lobby, and so on. But whatever power they still do have will be nil if geographic boundary lines no longer matter.
You literally won’t be able to move far enough away to keep your kids in a school free from thuggish MS-13 influences. The idea that neither geography nor money will keep them out of our kids’ schools is truly terrifying. It will almost necessitate homeschooling in heavily mixed metro areas like Houston, Memphis, and so on.
This is a different argument from what anti-school choice liberals make. They argue that all the taxpayer money currently going to public schools will find its way to the coffers of private and parochial schools. Why do they object to that? Simple. They know that the private and parochial schools, by and large, do a better job of educating their students. They know that their facilities, though usually inferior in many respects to the relatively well-funded taxpayer-purchased public facilities, are safer, cleaner, and simply more wholesome. And perhaps most importantly, they know that most people would rather have a somewhat traditional, religious, and disciplined upbringing for their children than the degenerate one pushed in government schools. They know this, and tremble. They see their salaries, pensions, and power at risk. That’s why they’ll stop at nothing to prevent school choice from coming into being.
I would love to see these respective liberal powers decapitated. The answer, though, is not school choice. Other options would include: (1) amending state constitutions so as to reinterpret what the states’ roles are in the educational process — potentially cutting off or restricting taxpayer funding, which is the lifeblood of socialist teachers’ unions, (2) deregulating homeschooling and alternative schooling so as to put more power in the hands of parents and not socialist school district administrators, (3) breaking up the teachers’ unions, (4) issuing rebates for property taxpayers whose children are not enrolled in public schools, (5) explicitly protecting the civil rights of white students and communities, and so on.
Just don’t take away our last enclaves of white self-determination and safety.
From the above thumbnail sketch, it is clear to me that school choice simply means further disempowering everyday Americans, putting their communities and schools at the mercy of outsiders, and exposing white kids to harmful, dangerous, and debilitating influences. It is the job of white adults to protect white kids from this very threat. How then can we support school choice? It isn’t good for whites.
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