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Mother Knows Best: Why I Fight for School Choice

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Are government schools really giving children the education they deserve? If you think the answer is “yes,” you haven’t asked a parent with a child stuck in a bad school. Cecilia Iglesias, President of the Parent Union, knows first-hand that our education system is in deep trouble.

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Script:

In the town where I grew up in El Salvador, we had one school. It was old and run down. There weren’t enough teachers. There weren’t enough textbooks. But my mother was a determined woman, and she had a plan—an amazing plan. I and my siblings would not get our education in El Salvador. We would get it in America. 

So we left our home, our family—everything and everyone we had ever known. I guess you could say it was an extreme example of school choice. 

It was a miserable bus ride to California—long and hot. But we made it.

That was the easy part. 

My mother barely spoke English. I spoke none. When I complained to her that it was too hard to learn in American schools, I didn’t get much sympathy. We had reached the promised land—the promise of a good education, of unlimited opportunity. English—good English—was required. So I learned it. My mom made sure of that. 

With that kind of background, you can imagine that I put a premium on the education of my own children. So when my son approached first grade, I took a hard look at the government school in our neighborhood. 

I didn’t like what I saw. Academic standards were low. Discipline was lax. I saw no good future there for my son. But I didn’t have the money for private school.

I did some research. I found that my district offered something they call “a fundamental school”—kind of like a charter school—where they stress reading, writing, and math. The test results at this school were higher than at the government school. This was exactly what I wanted for my son. 

I wasn’t the only one. Many other parents had come to the same conclusion. But there weren’t enough slots at the school to meet the demand. The only way to get in was through a lottery. 

My son’s education was going to be determined by a lottery? I was frustrated and angry. But I had no alternative—no choice. 

He didn’t get in the first year. But he did in the second year. We got lucky. 

This didn’t make me any less angry, though. I decided to do something with my anger. I decided I would run for school board and push for every parent to have a choice of schools for their children. It shouldn’t be a matter of luck.

I had no experience running for local office. I certainly wasn’t a politician. I was just a mom with an issue. I guess that was enough because I won.  

But like my long bus ride from El Salvador years ago, that proved to be the easy part. The government school system was in worse shape than I thought. Enrollment was declining, but costs were going up. We had more teachers making more money teaching fewer kids—with no test improvement to show for it. 

“Why don’t we try school choice?” I suggested at a board meeting. Introduce competition—because competition almost always makes things better. This sounded like common sense to me. To the teachers’ union, it was treason.

First came the nasty emails. Then the ugly tweets. When I wouldn’t shut up, the union packed board meetings with their activists. They booed me. Called me names you wouldn’t believe. I was even physically threatened—all because I had made the case for school choice. 

When they couldn’t intimidate me, they tried to get me thrown off the school board. When I decided to run for a second term, the union leaders declared war. They spent almost $250,000 against me in 2016—a quarter of a million dollars! For a seat on a local school board! 

But I won. Again. This time, with more votes than any other candidate.

For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/mother-knows-best-why-i-fight-for-school-choice

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42 Comments

  4. I live in Canada and have 4 children. One of them is of school age. I’ve wanted to put them in private school but it’s extremely expensive. Does anyone know if there’s some kind of “charter” schools in Canada? I don’t even know how to start my research 😩

  5. The nature of having a selective school is that test scores are higher. If you don't accept people who are disabled, or poor performers, than of course. I agree with the American principle of freedom and wanting to have more power given to you and I do believe our education system needs big reform. I think we should focus on fixing the public schools by giving kids more choice as to what they do at school. Getting rid of the rigid structure, giving more leeway as to what you have to do, make schools less like prisons. Those are things that charter character schools are able to do, and I think instead of shipping kids off from public schools, leaving many needy kids behind, we should actually get our government to port over that strategy to public schools that can benefit everybody.

  13. One pitfall we need to watch out for is state funding of private schools. In Germany the state started subsidizing private schools to make them more affordable, but then it started telling them what they could and couldn't teach. It became a kind of government takeover.

  15. The thing is here: not everyone can go to the same school. If there is one good and bad school in an area, everyone will want to go to the good school. But there aren't enough spaces. Some may have to go to the bad school. Classrooms can't just be built overnight.

  16. The school union has no business indoctrenating our children! Kids should be tought to love America, to respect our flag, and taught about our history. Instead, they're teaching them to hate our history, to curse our country, and to disrespect our flag. This is Satan's thing. When I was little, we said the plege with joy in our hearts. Now they want to take Under God out of it, and possibly even remove the plege out of our land. The democrats aren't what they used to be years ago. They're more ratical and become more ratical as days go bye. I'm voting for Trump. I'm voting for Donald J Trump, and I hope Jesus Christ puts Biden and Harris in their places. I also hope Pelosi gets removed as soon as possible. To top it all off, a. o. c. needs to be removed along with the other demon democrats. I want Judge Amy Coney Barratt confermed soon!

  17. Here is my confusion, and I apologize if this has been mentioned, but I tend to not read comments. So, here is why I am confused. Why are parents not demanding that government schools be held to higher standard? LBJ made K-12 schooling mandatory and through the years we have seen changes to this original mandate, the most recent being made by former President Obama with the Every Child Succeeds Act. So, where are these funds going and why are government schools not being held accountable for the valuable education every child needs? Why are the standards set for government funded schools lower than other schools? I see the same issue in higher education. If these are primarily government funded institutions, why are they not held to the same standards as other schools? This type of inconsistency breeds the perceived inequality in our schools. If one can't afford a private education, then they aren't worth looking at for the prestigious private colleges. It shouldn't be that way. Money shouldn't even be a factor when determining the education of a student willing to learn. I am not pro free education; however, if equalizing education makes the end result better… I may just change my opinion, but doubtful. Choice needs to remain for the student to go where they will learn the best and government funded schools should be held to the same standards when it comes to educational outcomes than any other school, especially in grades K-8.

  20. Regardless If schools reopen or not, the funding should go to parents to send their child to public, private, charter, religious, or home school, or to a babysitter or day care(they could do online schooling), of their choice or their childs choice. Preferably the child should be able to choose as long as the school they want to attend isnt to far.
    SO SENDING THEM BACK TO PUBLIC SCHOOL ISNT THEIR ONLY "FREE DAYCARE" OPTION. so money won't be the obstical that stops them from sending their child somewhere other than a public school while they go to work.

    Children should be given the option to make more of their own choices regarding their education and what they are taught.
    We need more education choice. More cirriculum choice.
    Tax funded education should be more geared toward individualized job training for a good job the child wants, instead of teaching them a bunch of info they forget after the test and never use and is irrelevant to the job they want.

    End mandatory school, ged and hsd requirements, age limits, minimum wage, and exsessive regs.
    People should be able to learn how to do a good job they want so they can afford a house and car before 18.
    For those who and whos parents cant afford it, tax deductible chairty and or the about 180,000dollars spent on k thru 12 per student could pay for it and trash k thru 12 and some of that money could be used to promote more independence and healthy living.

  32. It must be nice to be able to just get on a bus, cross the border and enroll your kids in a school in a country where you are not a citizen. I'm going to fly to Switzerland and enroll my kids in school there…oh, wait a minute.

  33. Yes, I heard of some Charters that are work orientated, job skill, work with your hands..etc.
    Some children are drawn to different education systems. They and the parents shouldnhave this choice. Oh, and NO Transgender bathrooms😉

  36. Here's an idea! What if instead of making completion for private schools more fierce, we revamped the education system so everyone could have a worthwhile education? NAAAH! Lets use test scores to make kids fight to get into a good school like we live in some dystopian Young Adult novel. We'll call it, "The HomeWork Games"

  37. Her delivery of the message is fine.

    However, there are better spokespeople for school choice.

    One question is constantly present in my mind while looking at the clip: did her mother come to the US illegally?

    In Central America, the Catholic Church run quite a number of schools and they are of high standards compared to the local government schools. And low tuition, and somtimes free.

    Also, in this narrative, there is one person missing: the father.

    I know a father, a former Chief Technology Officer of a Fortune 100 company based in Palo Alto, who home schooled (with his wife) his 2 children from K-12. No, he is not a miser. As far as college goes, he loaned them the money under one condition, the loans will be forgiven if they graduate and graduate before marriage. The daughter married 1 day after graduation