Oxford, England- William Jeynes, a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton and a professor at California State University-Long Beach, declared that the time for greater school choice has come in the U.S. and Europe. Dr. Jeynes made his speech at Oxford University in England. He stated that the growth of “defactualization” was the reason why nations need to expand school choice. Dr. Jeynes created the term “defactualization” a number years ago, to describe societies in which facts are either habitually denied or relegated to irrelevance facts due to an emphasis on subjectivity. He asserted that, “’Defactualization’ is quickly becoming one of the greatest crises of modern times. Many Westerners are increasingly denying biological and historical facts. We call life in the womb not life. Laws are being passed in some states that assert that it does not matter what gender you are; what matters is the gender that you say that you are. Regarding historical facts, there is of course some room for differences in interpretation. Nevertheless, history is made up of facts that cannot be denied be they the holocaust, Islamic military expansionism in the 700s A.D., or the bombing of Pearl Harbor.’”

Dr. Jeynes continued by stating, “In thousands of public schools in the U.S. and Europe, defactualization is expanding exponentially. Parents and children alike are looking for environments in which facts still matter. Opinions count, but not to the place in which they change undeniable facts.” Dr. Jeynes shared the results of a meta-analysis he had undertaken that were published recently in the Peabody Journal of Education that indicated that students that attended religious schools performed at academic levels about 9-10 months ahead of their counterparts in both public charter schools and traditional public schools. The faith-based school advantage was between 7-8 months, even when the study controlled for a vast array of factors such as socioeconomic status, race, selectivity, parental involvement, and gender. Dr. Jeynes also presented evidence that he has spoken on at the White House and were published in the Journal of Negro Education, indicating that the achievement gap in 25% narrower at religious schools than it is in both types of public schools. Jeynes states, “Faith-based schools still believe that facts and objective knowledge are important and therefore they offer a rich alternative.”