The Essential Selfishness of School Choice
Say your friend Sheila invites you over to her house.
Sheila has just made a fresh pumpkin pie.
She offers you a slice.
You politely refuse, but she insists. She hands you the knife so you can take as big a piece as you like.
You start to cut and then ask, “Does it matter where I cut from?”
Sheila says, “No. Take whatever you want.”
You don’t like crust, so you cut a perfect triangle piece from the middle of the pie.
Sheila’s face reddens.
This wasn’t exactly what she meant, but what is she going to do? You took your slice, and now the rest of the pie is ruined. No one else can take a whole piece. Your choice has limited everyone else’s.
It privileges the choice of some and limits the choices of others.
Advocates say parents should be able to choose the school their children attend.
And parents today do have many choices. About 90% send their kids to traditional public schools. Others home school, pay for private schools or opt for charter or voucher schools.
The problem comes with these last two options. In both cases, tax money meant to The Essential Selfishness of School Choice | gadflyonthewallblog: