Week in Review: Government’s Fight to Control Your Kids’ Education

Who should have more say in children’s education—unions, bureaucrats, and officeholders who care more about politics than kids—or parents who know what their children need to succeed?

These days, parents are getting shut out of their kids’ education, and too many administrators and politicians like it that way. As Goldwater’s Matt Beienburg and the American Enterprise Institute’s Max Eden write this week at The American Mind, what we have on our hands now is something of a “public education ‘deep state,’” where educational leaders and institutions (like school boards associations, as Beienburg documents in his recent investigative report) run roughshod over parents’ rights with no one to hold them accountable.

It’s long past time we shift the balance of power in kids’ education, but how can we do that? By giving families more educational options.

Those options were the topic of discussion in a Goldwater Institute webinar this past week, featuring Beienburg and EdChoice’s Jason Bedrick. “This is by far the biggest year that we’ve ever had” for school choice, Bedrick said, as virtual learning during the pandemic enabled parents to see for themselves the quality of education—or lack thereof—their children were receiving. Goldwater has been hard at work expanding choice in education to more states—and more students—across the country; we pioneered Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) a decade ago, and in 2021, the number of states that will offer these private education accounts doubled.

You can read more about our efforts to expand ESAs and educational freedom here.

Woke New Yorkers Just Evicted Thomas Jefferson

Who’s the latest target of woke New Yorkers? One of America’s Founding Fathers.

Recently, the New York City Public Design Commission voted to take down a statue of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall, soon after Mayor Bill de Blasio had called for its removal. The reason? New York City councilwoman Adrienne Adams summed up her aversion to the monument: “Jefferson embodied some of the most shameful parts of our country’s long and nuanced history.”

Goldwater Vice President for Litigation Timothy Sandefur joined the “Armstrong & Getty” radio show this week to talk about the shortsightedness of New York City’s move. “To say, ‘Well, Jefferson owned slaves’, as if that is the sum of his contribution or his character, shows a degree of historical ignorance that I think is perfectly represented by tearing down a Thomas Jefferson statue,” Sandefur said. You can listen to the full interview here.

At the Goldwater Institute, we’re committed to ensuring Americans, especially students, have an understanding of our nation’s history. That’s the mission of our Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy, which defends our founding principles and instills those values into our next generation of Americans. So when leftists try to tear down Founders like Jefferson, we work to make sure that Americans remember the principles that made this country possible and has protected freedom for millions.

You can read the full story at In Defense of Liberty.

Flagstaff Fight for Property Rights Goes On

While property owners in Flagstaff recently won a big victory to protect their rights, that doesn’t mean that the fight is over.

Flagstaff property owners scored a major win against efforts by city officials to impose a sweeping new land-use restriction called the High Occupancy Housing (HOH) Plan that would eliminate their right to use their property. After the Goldwater Institute helped dozens of property owners submit legal demands under the Arizona Private Property Rights Protection Act, which would have required the city to compensate them for some $50 million in legal losses, the city voted to waive the ordinance with respect to those property owners who sought relief against the restrictions.

But the HOH ordinance continues to impose costs for other Flagstaff property owners—by devaluing their properties, discouraging development and improvement, and blocking the development of affordable housing. This week, Goldwater Executive Vice President Christina Sandefur joined “The Jeff Oravits Show” to talk about how Flagstaff residents can protect their own property rights. You can listen to the full interview here, and if you’re a Flagstaff resident seeking to stand up for your property rights, you can learn more about how to file a claim against the city here.