…and there’s educational obstruction. This is the contest between charter schools (and, larger, school choice) and union public schools.

Charter enrollment is up 9% since 2019, while the number of students in district schools is down 3.5%, according to a new study from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “Families have discovered choice,” the report says, “and they like it.”

And

The trend holds for states of all sizes and political persuasions. From 2019-2023, charter enrollment grew in 40 of the 42 states analyzed, while traditional schools lost students in 40 states.

Naturally, the unions that run the public schools don’t like it: reduced public school enrollment reduces the power of teachers unions, and that reduces the power of the unions’ managers, and those folks can’t stand that.

Which is why teachers union management teams are so strident in their opposition to State funding for charter schools, and for voucher schools, or even—as in New York City—to allowing unused public school buildings for charter schools. Better to leave those facilities empty than to use them for the betterment of children.