Two of Stern’s arguments strike me as quite weak. He says that the ideological uniformity of education schools shows that competition and choice are not enough to ensure intelligent instruction. But competition among the ed schools does produce results, as Greene points out: It turns out students who are “well-suited to the preferences of our monopolistic public school system.” If we had a competitive K-12 market geared toward parents’ preferences for kids who are equipped to succeed, we would have reason to expect the ed schools to be different.

Similarly, Stern’s worries that there won’t be enough good private schools for school choice to work ignores how markets structure behavior. If school-choice programs are designed in a way that makes it possible for good schools to make a go of it, more of them will start and fewer of them will close.