Teachers Against Education
At Reason HQ, I saw a moving documentary about kids in New York -- poor black and Hispanic kids -- who were finally able to get an education thanks to charter schools near them.

Charter schools basically make the difference between kids who come from impoverished backgrounds possibly achieving what they can instead of basically being treated like human throwaways, as they often are in poorly performing urban public schools.

In line with this, Jason L. Riley wonders in the WSJ whether the teachers' unions have finally overplayed their hand with their fierce opposition to charter schools:

Perhaps it doesn't receive much attention anymore because it's become so commonplace. The best schools in New York state are again public charter schools. Ho-hum.

According to the most recent data from School Digger, a website that aggregates test score results, 23 of the top 30 schools in New York in 2019 were charters. The feat is all the more impressive because those schools sported student bodies that were more than 80% black and Hispanic, and some two-thirds of the kids qualified for free or discount lunches. The Empire State's results were reflected nationally. In a U.S. News & World Report ranking released the same year, three of the top 10 public high schools in the country were charters, as were 23 of the top 100--even though charters made up only 10% of the nation's 24,000 public high schools.

We are told constantly by defenders of the education status quo that the learning gap is rooted in poverty, segregation and "systemic" racism. We're told that blaming traditional public schools for substandard student outcomes isn't fair given the raw material that teachers have to work with. But if a student's economic background is so decisive, or if black students need to be seated next to whites to understand Shakespeare and geometry, how can it be that so many of the most successful public schools are dominated by low-income minorities?

...Covid-19 has exposed just how much control teachers unions have over K-12 education and, by extension, over so much else that affects our everyday lives. Randi Weingarten, head of the 1.7-million-member American Federation of Teachers, wakes up every morning in search of ways to keep children confined to traditional public schools, regardless of their quality. She and her thousands of state and local affiliate unions do this because it is good for their dues-paying members, and those interests come before the students and their families.

For decades, the big-city Democrats who oversee our largest school systems have enabled the teachers unions in return for generous political support. In effect, they're on Ms. Weingarten's payroll as well.

We'll find out in time if the unions have finally overplayed their hand. The New York Times reported this week on the recent "shift in attitudes toward the unions in affluent suburbs and urban neighborhoods." Some parents "have moved their children into private schools, which are more likely to be open, or charter schools, which are just as likely to be closed, but in some cases pivoted faster to live, online teaching." If this is a real trend, it's overdue. Liberals like to complain about persistent racial inequality, but a decent education is the first step in addressing it, and teachers unions are standing in the way.