Parker: Why, in our free country, do we lack education freedom?

What issue could be more important to a nation's future than education?

A country is about people. How Americans act, work, think, choose – live – reflects their values.

K-12 education, of course, is about learning to read and do math. This is what we measure in test scores.

But education is a lot more than acquisition of technical skills. It is about transmission of values and our sense of meaning of what life is about.

It's these values that determine how we act, behave, work and deal with life's many challenges.

Polling tells us that Americans are generally unhappy about education in our country.

In a recent Gallup poll, 53% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, and 33% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, said they are "completely/somewhat satisfied with the quality of K-12 education."

Dissatisfaction with education in our country is not limited to those on the receiving end. A recent Pew Research survey shows there is also considerable dissatisfaction with those providing it — the teachers themselves.

Per the Pew survey, among all U.S. workers, 51% say they are "extremely/very satisfied with their job." But among K-12 public school teachers, only 33% say they are "extremely/vary satisfied" with their job.

When the teachers were asked to rate academic performance of students at their school, 48% rated it "fair/poor" and only 17% rated it "excellent/very good."

When teachers rated behavior of the students at their school, 49% rated it "fair/poor" and 13% rated it "excellent/very good."

When teachers were asked about the problems they see in the students they are trying to teach, these are overwhelmingly behavioral problems. Forty-seven percent say students show "little or no interest" in learning. In high schools, this percent increases to 58%.

The bottom line, as I see it, is students learn when they are motivated to learn. Students don't learn when they are not.

Motivation comes from meaning, that life matters. This takes us back to the issue of values.

The culture of meaninglessness and moral relativism, and the absence of absolutes in right and wrong, is destroying our kids and their education as it is our whole country.

We have to change. But the great obstacle to change in K-12 education is the control of government in education and the control of teachers unions.

It is crazy that in a country that is allegedly about freedom, we have so little of it in something so vitally important as education.

The good news is school choice programs are growing around the country. But it is far too slow.

According to EdChoice, in the 2023/2024 school year, more than a million children are learning in school choice programs. This up from almost zero 25 years ago.

But this is one million out of more than 50 million youth in K-12 learning across the nation.

According to the Freedom Foundation, the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, allocated 34% of its total 2022/2023 budget, $176,505,592 of a budget total $520,208,114 to "political activism and contributions."

Our nation's largest teachers union is basically about politics, not education. And the political agenda is left-wing moral relativism.

According to opensecrets.org, the NEA's super PAC, NEA Advocacy fund, in the 2023-2024 cycle, contributed $18,833,477 to liberal groups and not one cent to conservative groups.

In their political contributions, $2,525,652 went to Democrats and $47,144 to Republicans.

The NEA defines its mission, on its website, as "ending racism, sexism, homophobia, and other systemic injustices in schools."

How about the systemic injustice that parents, who go to church every Sunday, can't free their child from the failing public school that is forced on them and cannot send their child to a Christian school to learn values that they see as truth?

School choice is on the ballot this November in Colorado, Kentucky and Nebraska.

Parents must be free to educate their child as they choose.

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education.