The Left, Pro-Educational Choice?
Now here’s a novel insight: Greg Forster, a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, in making the case that school vouchers deliver substantially more educational improvement than charters, argues:
- The Obama administration’s pro-charter rhetoric has been more than just talk. Charter caps are being lifted because the administration really does support charters.
- A critical mass of their political base on the left has embraced the principle that parents should be put in charge through choice.
- People on the left are turning to charters because they don’t trust the blob any more and they want a reform that doesn’t rely on the honesty of politicians.
An educational revolution in the making? Perhaps too soon to be optimistic. But Forster marshalls impressive evidence to suggest that the winds of change are indeed blowing.
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Thanks for noticing! I agree that we don’t want to be too optimistic too soon – Milton Friedman was convinced he’d live to see the day of victory, and he didn’t. But you should hear what some of the social justice folks say about the teachers’ unions these days. The $64,000 question, in my mind, is how soon the social justice folks will realize that charter schools alone aren’t enough to get the job done – and whether they’ll be willing to lay aside their trust issues with people on the right in order to get what they really need, which – even starting from their own premises – is universal vouchers.
Like Milton said: A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither, but a society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.