The Core Knowledge Blog

“In recent months, almost unnoticed by the mainstream media, the school voucher movement has abruptly stalled,” writes Greg Anrig in the Washington Monthly, thus becoming the latest member of that mainstream media to take notice of Sol Stern’s piece, “School Choice Isn’t Enough,” from last winter’s City Journal.

“One simple reason why voucher supporters have become disillusioned is that the programs haven’t delivered on their promises. School choice advocates claimed that vouchers would have two major benefits: low-income kids rescued from dysfunctional public schools would do better in private schools; and public schools would improve, thanks to the injection of some healthy competition.

Personally, I’ve always felt that the least compelling argument for school choice in general, and vouchers specifically, is to unleash market forces to improve all schools. As a teacher and a parent, that’s beside the point, and betrays a mindset that values institutions above children. If Smackdown Elementary School stinks, and families have the option to go to The Valhalla School, which is great, try telling those families that choice has failed because Smackdown Elementary still sucks. “I know,” they’ll reply. “Thank goodness I don’t have to send my child there anymore.”

Anrig, the Century Foundation’s vice president for programs, and the author of The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing, seems content to ascribe the failure of vouchers to the standard demographics-is-destiny line or argument. Buried deep in the piece is a remarkable paragraph that is probably not higher up because it serves merely to gainsay his entire argument. Still, he deserves credit for including it:

“The conservative infatuation with vouchers did contribute to one genuine accomplishment,” notes Anrig. “The past thirty years have been a period of enormous innovation in American education. In addition to charter schools, all kinds of strategies have taken root: public school choice, new approaches to standards and accountability, magnet schools, and open enrollment plans that allow low-income city kids to attend suburban public schools and participate in various curriculum-based experiments. To the extent that the threat of vouchers represented a “nuclear option” that educators would do anything to avoid, the voucher movement helped to prompt broader but less drastic reforms that offer parents and students greater educational choices.”

Oh. That all? Well, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?