I’ve been reading a lot about school choice lately, and maybe you have, too: President Obama and the Democrats are denying school choice to the wretched kids in Washington, D.C., natch. It has ever been thus.
I have been reading about school choice for what seems all my life. And, long ago, a truth became clear: The reason school choice is so hard to enact, or keep, is that it involves caring about other people’s children.
As people have said, President Obama’s children have never darkened the door of a public school: not in Chicago, not in D.C. I imagine they never will. The thing about school choice, it’s for other people’s children — not yours. Not when you are a “have,” as opposed to a “have not.”
And, of course, people such as the Obamas have always had school choice: Their money and status give them such flexibility.
These are old, old points — you could even call them clichés — but they are still true.