We talk about school choice as if it represents a radical new idea: parents deciding where their children go to school or how they should be educated. But here’s an equally radical question, seldom asked: Who’s choosing now?
In a traditional, zoned public school district, families are assigned a school based largely on their address. And once assigned, an extraordinary number of decisions are made on their behalf — many of them deeply consequential but few of them visible.
Your child will learn to read in a particular way. That decision has already been made. Phonics-heavy or whole-language and “cueing”-based? Direct instruction or workshop model? You likely have no say.
Your child will read certain books and not others. Shakespeare, perhaps. Or not. Whole novels, or excerpts. Contemporary young adult fiction, or classic literature. A knowledge-rich curriculum or reading “skills-and-strategies” lessons.
Someone has decided.
Your child will be taught history through a particular lens. The American story may be framed as aspirational and flawed, or structurally oppressive. Or maybe hardly at all to make more time for reading and math. Certain events will be emphasized. Others will be compressed into a paragraph or elided altogether.
Someone has decided.
Your child will spend a set number of hours each day on a screen — or not. They may have a school-issued device in kindergarten. Or they may not see one until middle school. Their textbooks may be physical books or digital platforms. Their homework may be done with paper and pencil, or require logging into multiple apps each evening. The school has decided how much time your child will spend on math. On reading. On science. On social-emotional learning. On test prep. On assemblies. On advisory. On art and music — if they are offered at all.
The school decided whether multiplication tables must be memorized. Whether grammar is taught explicitly. Whether students can retake exams. Whether homework counts. Whether late work carries penalties. Whether a physical altercation merits a suspension or a restorative talking circle between the combatants.
It has decided whether phones are banned or tolerated. Whether classrooms are orderly and teacher-directed or collaborative and student-centered. Whether group work dominates or independent practice is prized.
It has decided how early algebra begins. Whether students are tracked. Whether gifted education exists. Whether advanced courses are offered. Whether vocational pathways are respected.
It has decided how much recess children get. When the school day begins. When it ends. Whether the year stretches into summer.
It has decided the dress code. The bathroom policy. The approach to controversial issues. Whether teachers may share political opinions. Whether the Pledge of Allegiance is recited. Whether Christmas concerts still exist. Whether parents are informed about sensitive topics pertaining to their children’s well-being.
It has decided how excellence is defined. Whether competition is visible or muted. Whether struggle is normalized or pathologized. Whether children are treated as fragile or resilient. Whether effort is celebrated. Whether achievement is ranked.
It has decided the peers your child will learn alongside — a function of zoning lines drawn years ago for reasons that may have had little to do with your family.
These decisions are not sinister. Schools cannot be infinitely customizable. They must make collective choices. Public education, by definition, requires common norms. But the scale of delegated authority is striking: You are assigned a school, and then you live inside other people’s choices.
But something else is happening alongside that old reality — unevenly, state by state.
In a growing number of states, parents can now direct public funds toward alternatives beyond their assigned public school. What would have seemed politically implausible just a few years ago, broad eligibility for education savings accounts or similar programs, is now established policy in parts of the country and gaining ground quickly.
At the same time, the share of families educating at home through homeschooling, virtual schooling, or small hybrid arrangements is meaningfully higher than it was before the pandemic. Microschools and other boutique forms of education, once marginal experiments, now serve a visible if still modest share of students.
In some states, mostly red ones, the locus of authority is beginning to migrate from system to family. In others, mostly blue, the old arrangement remains almost total. We are living, in other words, in two educational Americas. And that contrast sharpens the earlier point rather than distracting from it.
We often describe school choice as if it hands parents unprecedented power. Critics fret that it invites waste and fraud or empowers non-experts to make decisions they are not qualified to make. But these voices rarely consider that it merely allows them to influence decisions that are already being made — just not by them.
To be clear, the promise of school choice does not mean that every decision will align with every parental whim. It does not guarantee perfection or eliminate disagreement. It simply shifts the locus of authority. Instead of one assignment determined by geography, families can evaluate trade-offs. This curriculum or that one. This technology policy or that one. This disciplinary model or that one. This cultural tone or that one. And if the default, geographically zoned public school is not satisfactory, they may say so with their feet.
RETIREMENT AGES SHOULD BE GOING UP, NOT DOWN
The debate over school choice is often conducted at 30,000 feet — about competition and equity and funding formulas. Lost in that debate is the quieter reality that, right now, someone is choosing for your child — what they will read, how they will learn, and how they will spend their days. Choosing, in subtle but significant ways, what they will come to believe about knowledge, about excellence, about their country, about themselves.
The question is not whether choices are being made. They are and always have been. The question is who makes them.