PrintFebruary 26, 2008
Obama and school choice for the inner cities
For years, free-market conservatives have proposed the best ideas for improving schools, public safety, and the economics of medicine. In every single case, they have been blocked by special-interest unions. The teacher unions are more interested in controlling the schools than in freeing the education market for school choice. Parents of inner city kids favor school choice; teachers do not. It is the teachers who have consistently won, in good part because of their political clout on the Left.
It took a Republican, Rudy Giuliani, to drastically lower the crime rate in New York City. In Florida, a Republican Governor named Bush has been able to use free market ideas to improve the schools. Our economy is in good shape (in spite of bearish talk) because Republicans in Congress and the White House have been able to keep taxes relatively low, encouraged free trade internationally, and limit stifling overregulation.
All these good policies are endangered if Barack Obama wins the White House and the Democrats control Congress. Even if Senator Obama himself wants positive policies, his followers and staff are invested in classical socialist liberal programs -- programs that seem compassionate but turn out to be the opposite.
So a good question to focus on for this campaign is simple: What does Barack Obama say about school choice for the inner cities?
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com
