The pursuit of the public interest does not always require a public bureaucracy. Medicare pays for services provided at Catholic hospitals. The GI bill allowed veterans to use their scholarships at religious colleges and universities. The proper role of government is to ensure the provision of essential services, not always to provide those services itself.
In the case of children in failing public schools, this argument gains moral urgency. Choice may not be a system-wide panacea. But it remains a disturbing spectacle when teachers unions count as a legal “victory” when disadvantaged children are returned to troubled, unsafe institutions.
Yet it is probably not the moral arguments that will prevail. The opponents of educational choice are attempting to defend the monopoly of the neighborhood school in a nation in which most monopolies and oligopolies (see the phone company, the post office or newspapers) have come under pressure. Parents, including suburban parents, increasingly expect educational options such as charters, home-schooling, magnet programs and career academies. Customized, online learning will accelerate the trend. The tie between a Zip code and an educational outcome is being broken — whatever our intentions.
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