Public education is the greatest tool for social mobility we have as a country. An educated populace benefits all of us, both in ways material and immaterial.

Yet public education in the US has been under attack for decades, by criticism and mistrust, crippling budget cuts at the K-12 levels, and unduly soaring costs at college levels.

So it’s unsurprising to see hot button issues used against it to tear down public education. In the wake of Uvalde, I’ve seen several commentators saying this is why homeschooling is better than public schools, this is why schools should be privatized, and questioning public schools’ ability to keep kids safe. It starts to sound like the calls for privatization of education, like we heard when Betsy DeVos was Secretary of Education under Trump.

According to statistics online, 10% of US K-12 students attend private school, yet 6% of school shootings 2000-2018 occurred at private schools. Clearly there are many reasons, some correlated and not a cause.

The conservative/ libertarian Cato Institute (founded by one of the Koch brothers) said in 2018, “Anytime you write about a tragedy and point to your favorite policy reform as the solution, it can seem opportunistic and, frankly, a little callous. But it is not groundless to think that school type could matter, and nothing should be off‐ limits for discussion to end these sorts of tragedies.”

I might actually believe they were honest about nothing being off-limits if they honestly considered and tried popular aspects of gun control. Instead, we just get more attacks on public education.