Believe us, the very last person we ever thought we would hear advancing the virtues of parental choice was Barack Obama’s mayor.
And while it’s important to note that longtime Windy City boss Richard M. Daley has not endorsed vouchers (yet), he did point out that it was “notable” that Pell Grant money can be used to finance an education at private colleges but federal funds cannot be used on a private education at the K-12 level.
Which we think is “notable,” too. Notably asinine.
Anyway, from this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, here’s Daley channeling Milton Friedman:
Mr. Daley believes the goals of public education should be global competitiveness. “When children in America go to school six hours a day, that’s 30 hours a week they get 25 hours of instruction.” That’s only about three full working days, he says, far less than kids are getting in other rising countries, especially in Asia.
Mayor Daley also sees an important role for charter schools. “You can’t have a monopoly and think a monopoly works. Slowly it dissolves. And I think that charter schools are good to compete with public schools. Nobody says there’s something wrong with public universities facing competition from private ones. I think the more competition we have, the better off we are in Chicago.”
Oh, and the more money Chicago’s public schools would get to spend per pupil, too.
The worm is turning on parental choice, people … even if Daley’s most famous former constituent still hasn’t taken his headquarters out of his hindquarters on this issue.
Obama’s plan, sadly, is to continue dumping billions into the same failed, anti-competitive system that has our nation falling further behind the rest of the world.
