School safety is top reason parents use choice to leave public schoolshttps://www.joannejacobs.com/post/school-safety-is-top-reason-parents-use-choice-to-leave-public-schoolsLaw enforcement agencies reported nearly 1.3 million criminal incidents on school property from 2020 to 2024, according to a new FBI report. That includes 540,000 assaults and 45,000 sex offenses. "Kids shouldn't be trapped in dangerous schools," writes Corey DeAngelis, a school choice advocate.
Bullying is the number one reason parents use choice programs to leave public schools, write researchers Misty Gallo, Colyn Ritter and Patrick J. Wolf. Low middle-school test scores rank second. "When public schools are not equipped to limit exposure to bullying behavior and when the academics of the middle school years are insufficient, parents flee the public schools if and when private school choice programs provide the financial means to do so.
Our first (of several) reasons for beginning homeschooling in the late 1980s was concerns about academic quality. Other common reasons, at the time, were religious-moral reasons and not believing in schools' one-size-fits-all methodology. Concerns about school safety were not common then. It's telling, to those willing to admit it, that school safety has become the top reason.
Just a note about author Joanne Jacobs, she is a "traditional liberal" - a liberal left behind and sometimes hated by modern Prog'ism - not a conservative. She doesn't much care whether children are educated in government, private, or home schools, as long as they are educated.
