来源：《福布斯》杂志4月5月双月刊
Good news! Parents are rising up to rescue our schools. The pandemic lockdowns exposed the reasons why so many of our schools are in trouble. Parents were shocked by what was and wasn’t in the curricula—most notably, the absence of courses that give kids an objective overview of our country’s history and our system of government, what used to be called “civics.”
好消息！家长们正在奋起拯救我们的学校。疫情封锁暴露了我们许多学校陷入困境的原因。家长们对课程中有什么和没有什么感到震惊，最值得注意的是，没有课程让孩子们客观地了解我们国家的历史和我们的政府制度，也就是过去所谓的“公民学”。
Parents realized that they needed more input into how schools are run and what their children are being taught. They were also appalled at how the unions kept schools closed when there was no scientific justification for doing so. All this has given the school-choice movement a powerful thrust that ultimately promises to get our education system back on track.
家长们意识到，他们需要更多地投入到学校的运作和孩子们的教育中。他们还对教师工会在没有科学依据的情况下关闭学校感到震惊。所有这些都为择校运动提供了强大的推动力，最终有望让我们的教育系统回到正轨。
There’s no excuse for American kids scoring so poorly on reading and math tests compared with their peers in other nations. Many kids who are barely literate are passed through the lower grades and on to high school. Children’s prospects shouldn’t be limited by their Zip code.
与其他国家的同龄人相比，美国孩子在阅读和数学测试中得分如此之低，这没有借口开脱。许多几乎不识字的孩子从低年级升入高中。孩子的前途不应该被他们的居住地所限制。
Yet, despite local successes in such states as Florida and Arizona and cities such as Milwaukee, progress has been dishearteningly thwarted by powerful teachers’ unions that fiercely resist any challenge to their monopolies. For the most part, they have seriously limited the allowed number of charter schools, which can operate free from the clutches of the unions. No wonder. Kids in charter and other nongovernment schools routinely do better than their public-school peers.
然而，尽管佛罗里达、亚利桑那等州和密尔沃基等城市取得了地方性的成功，但令人沮丧的是，进步遭到了强大的教师工会的阻挠，他们强烈抵制任何对其垄断地位的挑战。在很大程度上，他们严重限制了特许学校的数量，特许学校可以不受教师工会的控制。所以难怪，特许学校和其他非政府学校的孩子往往比公立学校的同龄人成绩更好。
But last year the dam started to break; 19 states either created or expanded school-choice options. This year more than 20 states have done so or are in the process of passing significant pro-school-choice legislation. And along the same lines, the number of homeschooling families has doubled.
但去年大坝开始决堤；19个州创建或扩大了择校选项。今年，20多个州已经或正在通过重要的支持择校的立法。与此同时，在家上学的家庭数量翻了一番。
What is also notable is the growing cry for school money to follow the kids, not the school, in the form of education savings accounts (ESAs). Money is deposited into these accounts to be used for various educational purposes, including private-school tuition. The number of states in 2021 that had various forms of ESAs went from five to eight.
同样值得注意的是，越来越多的人呼吁教育经费以教育储蓄账户(ESAs)的形式流向孩子，而不是学校。存入这些账户的钱用于各种教育目的，包括私立学校的学费。2021年，拥有各种形式ESA的州从5个增加到8个。
By 2026, ESAs could be available to all students in West Virginia. New Hampshire has passed its ambitious ESA program, dubbed Education Freedom Account.
到2026年，西弗吉尼亚州的所有学生都可以使用ESA。新罕布什尔州通过了其雄心勃勃的ESA计划，称之为教育自由账户。
The Ohio legislature has begun hearings on legislation offering school choice throughout the state. Iowa’s governor, Kim Reynolds, is also pushing ambitious school-choice legislation.
俄亥俄州立法机构已经开始就在全州范围内提供择校的立法举行听证会。爱荷华州州长Reynolds也在推动雄心勃勃的择校立法。
Of course, resistance to these plans by teachers’ unions is fierce. At the behest of unions, Utah’s Republican governor is blocking a school-choice bill.
当然，教师工会对这些计划的抵制是激烈的。在工会的要求下，犹他州的共和党州长正在阻止一项择校法案。
This brings us to an inconvenient truth: The teachers’ unions are not about educating kids but rather expanding administrative bloat, which means more dues payers. For example, one study found that between 1992 and 2014 real inflation-adjusted school spending went up 27%, while real teachers’ pay went down 2%.
这让我们看到了一个令人不适的事实：教师工会的目的不是教育孩子，而是扩大行政规模，这意味着更多的会费缴纳者。例如，一项研究发现，1992年至2014年间，经通胀调整后的实际学校开支增长了27%，而实际教师的工资却下降了2%。