A correspondent writes:

“School choice, charter schools, alternative schools involve risk of some
unsavory things. They are not all going to be a National Association of Scholars western civilization dream, and I don’t see how it can be otherwise if they are going to exist at all.”

To which I say, ok, but then we can’t think of them as the solution to the problems in K-12 education. They may be partial solutions at best, and we have to continue to make the case against the pedagogies and theories and ideas (like the “critical pedagogy” movement of Paolo Friere that Sol Stern writes about in the current City Journal) that influence teacher education and then filter into the schools. Just having “choice” does not mean the choices will be good.