Give parents a choice for their children's education

Lance Izumi:

A key difference between John McCain and Barack Obama has to do with their views on the role and rights of parents in deciding how their children will be educated.

To his credit, Mr. Obama supports parental involvement programs and charter schools. But such programs, as innovative as they might be, are subject to the policies and approval of federal, state or local lawmakers. Governments, not parents, remain the ultimate decision-maker.

School-choice programs like vouchers, however, give decision-making authority to parents. In his speech before the American Federation of Teachers, Mr. Obama criticized Mr. McCain’s “tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice.” He believes that vouchers are unfair to poor parents. But he’s wrong: the the heart of Mr. McCain’s case for greater school-choice options, which includes vouchers, is fair and respectful of parents’ rights.

In his July speech to the NAACP, Mr. McCain said that when the public-school system fails to deliver safe conditions and quality education for children, “parents ask only for a choice in education.” In other words, when faced with grim prospects, fairness requires that parents be given choices and the ability to exercise them. For his own part, Mr. Obama exercised his legitimate and understandable choice to send his daughters to a private school.

Acknowledging the advantage of being a United States senator, Mr. Obama has said: “The question is whether or not ordinary parents, who can’t work the system, are able to get their kids into a decent school, and that’s what I need to fight for and will fight for as president.” But improving the quality of all public schools, as Mr. Obama commendably seeks to achieve, will still not give less-advantaged parents the ability to make the same choice he made for his children — vouchers will.

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Public schools that are failing need to be forced to compete for students. If they offered better education people would be less likely to opt for vouchers. But the Democrats and the teachers union fear competition will destroy the school rather than make it better. That does not say much for their confidence in the product they are providing. In the meantime they are condemning poor most black students to an inferior education and lowering their chances of success when they leave school.