PSSSST...CHOICE INCLUDES BAD CHOICES :

The Ugly Lie About Vouchers (Jane Ehrenfeld, July 8, 2002, Washington Post)

The voucher system promises choice to parents who often are the victims of American neglect and failure. But for many children, that choice is an illusion.

Yes, you have a choice, if your parents can read. Yes, you have a choice, if your parents have time to make such decisions -- if they have time off from their jobs, or are working only one job instead of two, or work during the day as opposed to working at night and needing to sleep during the day.

Yes, you have a choice if your parents have the desire to take advantage of it. Yes, you have a choice if your parents have the money to pay any tuition or other costs that the voucher does not cover. Yes, you have a choice if you are bright and well-behaved and likely to be admitted to private school. Yes, you have a choice if it is feasible for you to go to a school with no free breakfast and no free lunch and no after-care program and possibly no special education.

But otherwise, you have no choice. You are stuck in your local public school no matter how dismal it may be, and you must suffer there while the false promise of vouchers tricks the people who could help you into looking the other way.

So, in other words, you're no worse off under a choice system than you are now, right? And you did have a choice; it was just exercised poorly, right? And despite liberalism's fondest wishes, we just can't prevent people from screwing up their own lives. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 8, 2002 6:08 PM