In 1989, Boris Yeltsin, then a newly elected member of the Soviet Parliament and two years away from becoming the last leader of the Soviet Union and first president of Russia, visited the United States. His trip included time at the Johnson Space Center, but it was an unplanned visit to an American grocery store that same day that provoked what many believed was Yeltsin’s greatest amazement.

As he walked up and down the aisles, he looked with amazement at all of the choices, stopping in the frozen food section to marvel over the different frozen pudding pop options. Not even the highest-ranking Communist party officials had choices like the ones he was seeing, he commented.

He went on to say, according to a Texas Chronicle story published at the time, that if his fellow countrymen knew of the choices they were being deprived of, there would be a revolution.

Now some might dismiss this as simply the words of a man who wanted to lead his country out of the crushing poverty of Communism, but I think that would be a mistake.

Mr. Yeltsin understood that all people, not just free people, yearn for options to make their lives better, more enjoyable and more fulfilled. A frozen pudding pop may not immediately bring to mind a fulfilled life, but it is certainly enjoyable.

This is to say: A nation abundant with choices for its people in politics, economics, education, art and so on, is a vibrant, free and thriving nation.

Wyoming’s House Bill 166, recently signed into law by Gov. Mark Gordon, creates an Education Savings Account (ESA) for the school-age students of our state. A Wyoming family of five making $54,870 is now eligible to receive $6,000 to be directed to the school of their choice for each of their school-age children. The funds will not be personally administered by the family, but will be directed by the state to the school of their choice to help pay the cost of that education.

The governor used his line-item veto pen to remove a portion of the original bill in response to concerns that universal access to these funds might violate the Wyoming Constitution. The viability of those Constitutional provisions remains in question. Instead, he left intact the lowest tier, allowing families with the greatest financial need access to the scholarships.

While many will rightfully argue for the universality of the program, the program itself will require a heavy lift by the Department of Education to get it up and running once all legal challenges have worked their way through the courts.

Until then, many Wyoming families will benefit from the passage of this new piece of legislation.

I say we need to reject the notion that there is a binary battle between school choice and public schools. Indeed, the very idea of school choice includes the choice of public education. Public education provides services that may be attractive to certain families but not attractive to others, just as is the case for charter schools, private schools, home schooling and tutoring.

Our public schools are the bedrock of our state and our communities, especially our small rural communities. Spoiler alert: Small towns really do matter! I was raised in a small town in Nebraska, and the public school I attended was the center of our town. Sporting events, school plays, Christmas programs and fundraisers were all packed with families, both those with school-age children and those whose kids were long gone.

Sadly, however, there are still many parents who have had negative experiences with the public schools their children attend. Those parents are desperate for and deserve other options.

Are we so arrogant as to ignore their plight for the sake of holding a monopoly on education in our state?

I think that’s the wrong way to look at education. No one’s experiences, good or bad, should be ignored. But all those experiences should lead us to accept and embrace a multi-option solution for every family in this state. That means school choice.

From a public charter school that offers parents a variety of extracurricular activities and specific school culture, to a private science school that offers a fast-tracked STEM curriculum, school choice gives parents the solutions they are looking for in educating their children. I know families in Wyoming who have a child in public education, a child in private school and a child being tutored at home. The point is the education of the child.

Those of us who have spent time writing and talking about public education and the need for more school choice aren’t trying to interfere with public education. We are trying to ensure parents have the full range of options they deserve, including public education so their children learn those core academic subjects and graduate with skills for future employment.

While I know many will never support school choice, I hope we can all agree that public education is not in grave danger of elimination.

The reality is that our education system, like our country, is strong. We can make it stronger by supporting the positive work being done for all families in our state. And that includes school choice.

An abundance of options shocked and excited Boris Yeltsin in 1989 because he had been born and raised in a system of government that monopolized every single aspect of its people’s lives, from where and what they ate to their educations to the jobs they held. It was a grim future that thankfully failed. The abundance he saw reflected in that grocery store in 1989 solidified in his mind that America was a free and vibrant nation.

School choice provides parents with even more options to educate their children, and at the end of the day, isn’t that the real point? To ensure every American child gets the best possible education to equip them for an abundant life?

That’s the goal we should strive for. It shouldn’t matter so much how we get there.

Amy Edmonds is a former state legislator from Cheyenne. She can be reached at amyinwyoming@icloud.com.

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