Jonathan Butcher
Heritage Foundation
Phoenix, AZ, United States
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Past articles by Jonathan:
Let’s Swap Racial Preferences for Ability, Skill in College Admissions
College admissions officers who use racial preferences when approving applications are “minimizing the very nature of what we send our children to postsecondary education for,” says Stephen Gilchrist, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “I’m concerned that we have a lot of academically gifted students in this country who need to be vetted based on their ability, regardless of… → Read More
Let’s Swap Racial Preferences for Ability, Skill in College Admissions
Sixty-two percent of survey respondents say admissions officers should not consider applicants’ race when selecting the next incoming class. → Read More
DEI Doesn’t Work—Taxpayers Shouldn’t Pay for It
The evidence has been mounting for years: Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, ironically enough, don’t make people more tolerant of individual differences. So why aren’t the “experts” who say racism is still omnipresent calling for different solutions? Likely because they are the ones spreading—and benefiting handsomely from—the DEI gospel. → Read More
For National School Choice Week, Sen. Lee Wants to Empower Parents, not Educrats
Teachers unions have long opposed efforts to give parents more choices in education. But parents today should quote something from Samuel Gompers, who founded the American Federation of Labor in the 19th century, to union members: “Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.” → Read More
Lawmakers, Let Parents Have a Say in Their Children’s Life-Changing Decisions
Education bureaucrats are “socially affirming” children who are confused about their sex—often without their parents’ knowledge. Parents are furious, and rightfully so. But lawmakers have a simple solution that reconnects the act of “affirming” a child with the idea that parents are a child’s primary caregivers. → Read More
School Choice Is Driving Entrepreneurship in Education & the Workforce
Education savings accounts continue to change the way Arizona families think about their child’s K-12 school experience, despite Gov. Katie Hobbs’ threats to cut the program. Over the last year, the accounts have also changed the way businesses and entrepreneurs think about education, too. → Read More
S.C. Should Trust Parents To Make the Best Education Choices for Their Kids
Should schools do more to train students for the workforce, or focus on the three R’s? South Carolina K-12 officials have been debating that very question lately. A few education experts from around the country also chimed in, according to a local report. State lawmakers, though, are moving in a different direction that focuses on the real experts: parents. → Read More
Seizing the Moment: A State Education Agenda for 2023
K–12 public education is a state responsibility and a federal interest, which means that state lawmakers have the primary responsibility for adopting and revising the laws governing public schools as well as scholarships, education savings accounts, and other private learning options. State officials also have significant authority over the laws concerning higher education, and given the dismal… → Read More
DEI Has Failed; We Do Not Need More of It
School districts across the country have established diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices to reduce discrimination, and the Department of Education regularly touts the value of DEI programs to quell bias. Yet nationwide, school officials reported a “record number” of discrimination complaints last year. How can this be? In truth, studies show that DEI offices accomplish little more than… → Read More
An Education Road Map for the 118th Congress
The 118th Congress will open its doors on January 3, 2023. A new class of Congressmen provides new opportunities to right-size federal intervention in education and give parents more choices about where and how their children are educated. A host of issues—from preschool through college affordability, to education choice and parental rights—require Congress’s attention. Early Childhood Education… → Read More
Giving Every Child an Excellent Future with Education Savings Accounts
In July 2022, Arizona lawmakers converted the nation’s oldest K–12 education savings account (ESA) policy into the country’s most inclusive learning option: Every child in Arizona can now apply for a private account that empowers families to customize a student’s learning experience according to his or her unique needs. → Read More
Even Families Who Don’t Use Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Support Them
Last summer, when Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law that made Empowerment Scholarship Accounts an option for all children in the state, special interest groups panicked. Save Our Schools Arizona launched a referendum campaign, urging citizens to “vote for public schools” and support “our kids and our communities” by opposing the expansion. Yet SOS couldn’t gather enough signatures to put its… → Read More
Back to Campus and the Return of Shout Downs
Students pounded their fists on the door so hard the walls shook. Pulled fire alarms, broke windows. Was this an attempt to escape a burning building? No, just another riot that canceled a speech on campus. → Read More
After Teacher “Union Antics,” It Is Even Clearer Parents Need More School Options
The teacher union in Ohio’s largest school district went on strike in early August, keeping children out of classrooms. → Read More
Florida Is a High Achiever in Rankings of Educational Freedom
As a mother of five children, Emily Hayes knows that every child has different needs. And she is keenly aware that these needs change over time. This means life at home must change as children grow and, so does life at school—or wherever a child is learning. This is a lot for any parent to handle. Especially parents of children with special needs. → Read More
Arizona Shows the Nation What Education Freedom Looks Like
It is now clear that two years of unnecessarily long public school shutdowns have produced a massive learning loss. Equally clear is that students are better off when their families have lots of education options. "It just wasn't working out while our school was closed," said Vanessa Ramirez, a single mom from Phoenix, Arizona. "Parents had to take our kids' education into our own hands." → Read More
After Teacher “Union Antics,” It Is Even Clearer Parents Need More School Option
The teacher union in Ohio’s largest school district went on strike in early August, keeping children out of classrooms. → Read More
Biden Administration “Had a Plan” for School Re-Opening; Let’s Review
On Sept. 1, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona claimed that the Biden administration had a plan to “focus on safely getting back to in-person learning” last year. On the same day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that school re-openings were “the work of Democrats in spite of Republicans.” → Read More
With Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court Closed the Book on Religious Discrimination in School Choice
> It is too late in the day to doubt that the liberties of religion and expression may be infringed by the denial of or placing of conditions upon a benefit or privilege. > —Justice William J. Brennan, 1963REF Introduction For nearly a century, the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the fundamental right of parents to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their… → Read More
Minnesota Proposes to Require Teachers to Use Critical Race Theory. Here’s What Parents Need to Know.
Parents are spreading “disinformation and hysteria around critical race theory,” a former teacher recently told NPR. “Teachers can barely afford the resources for their own curriculum it’s laughable that they’d shell out money [to teach] a college course,” he said. College, of course, is the place where radical activists claim that critical race theory is found, not in K-12 classrooms. → Read More