Warren's Defense of Teachers Union Hurts Students

Two women — one black and not affluent; one white, wealthy and famous — are contrasting faces of America’s debate about equal educational opportunity in grades K through 12. Porschia Anderson, a mother with daughters in kindergarten, fourth and 10th grades here, and parents like her have an enormous stake in Pennsylvania expanding charter schools and supporting other avenues to educational choices. The aim of such measures is for parents of modest, or negligible, means to have alternatives that affluent parents take for granted. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is ardent for equality as an abstraction but is even more ardent for the support of public school teachers unions. They are tenacious in defense of their semi-monopoly in primary and secondary education: Just 6 percent of the nation’s pupils are in charter schools, and only 218,000 (0.39 percent) of the 56.6 million pupils received vouchers.