Anne Trenolone notes a good piece on the complications of school choice (below) and today Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post adds to our understanding of how much parents want this opportunity for their children:
“If it were up to the children and their parents, there’d be no question that the District’s five-year experiment with school vouchers would be renewed for an additional five years or more….
“Here’s how one mother expressed it to researchers from Georgetown University and the University of Arkansas: ‘Before . . . his grades were below average, and for the first time he made the honor roll . . . He came home, he was so proud that he made the honor roll . . . They had the awards ceremony, so I wouldn’t tell him I was coming . . . When he came out he saw [my husband and me] sitting in the first row . . . He gave us this big grin; but to see him walk up there and receive that piece of paper, I mean you could see the joy all over him.’
“The parental reaction shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, most Americans enjoy school choice’ without ever thinking about it in those terms: If they don’t like their neighborhood school, they can move to a different neighborhood or school district or send their children to private or parochial schools. Only the poor, who can’t afford tuition or to move, say, from the District to Falls Church, are without school choice.”