Many education experts and school choice proponents believe the coronavirus pandemic may result in permanent changes to the way America’s children are educated.

With 55 million students absent from public classrooms because of the coronavirus, vast numbers of parents have been forced into homeschooling. With that in mind, Tommy Schultz of the American Federation for Children says he is eager to see the results of a new AFC poll.

“We have polling already from this past fall that showed that 70 percent of families would prefer to send their kids to either a private school, a charter school, or a homeschool,” he begins. “I’m very curious with our new poll coming out in two weeks to see how much of that has changed. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a spike in homeschooling come this fall — once everything gets back opened up even.”

But Schultz also foresees opposition to the greater demand for private schools and homeschooling.

Schultz

“The teachers’ unions—for them it’s all about money, right,” he submits. “They just want to keep as much money into the system as possible so they can then use it for their political purposes and funnel that money pulled out of teachers’ paychecks into their political campaigns.”

According to AFC, there are 56 publicly-funded private school choice programs in 26 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.