You can’t help but be moved by stories like this.  Similarly, you can’t miss the political reasons they aren’t more widely spread.

[Denisha] Merriweather’s future looked bleak. “Teachers would sigh when I walked through the door,” she said of the district schools she attended. “Another Merriweather,” they would judge. “My family name was not that bright,” she explained. The young child was on a familiar path of academic deficiency, hopelessness and missed opportunities that plagues many urban, low-income youths who are floundering in government-run schools. “Another Merriweather” was set to be a statistic.

But that’s not what happened. Merriweather went to live with her godmother who heard through her church community about a nearby private school. It was too expensive for her guardian to afford, but the family learned of Florida’s pioneering tax-credit scholarship program that expands education choice for income-eligible students looking to exit district schools.

The politics of this aren’t difficult to trace.  The entire education establishment, from the administrative bureaucracy to the teachers unions, aligns with the Democrat Party, which is now fully built upon the premise that anything important should be run by government.

On the other side — whether you see it as cynical or as sincere — a foundational premise of economic freedom align with political incentives to make the Republican Party the party of school choice.  That suite of policies most benefits the families that are the most stuck, which tends to mean those who are disadvantaged, among whom minorities are disproportionately numbered.

Yet, Democrats need minorities for votes and as political cover for their elitist policies, so evidence that school choice levels the playing field must be discounted or suppressed.

The gravity of this particular issue may be a central reason “anti-racism” and critical race theory are suddenly everywhere — with dogged support from teachers unions.  Minorities must have their attention refocused on a “systemic racism” phantom that keeps them reliant on the very groups who are oppressing them.

In its broad strokes, this strategy is so obvious it’s difficult to imagine what could make people see it if they haven’t already.

Featured image by Redd on Unsplash.