Richard John Neuhaus on the moral case for parental choice in education at FIRST THINGS:
But the moral case standing on its own is not enough to persuade the majority of voters. The moral case is focused on the plight of the disadvantaged, especially the urban underclass, mainly black and Latino, in our larger cities. Here in New York, as in other major cities, expenditure per student in the government schools has multiplied many times over, and still less than half the young people end up with a high school diploma they can read. A third of all black young men in the country will spend some time in jail. In the inner cities, that figure is well over half.
The reality is that most parents in America are, wisely or not, more or less satisfied with the government schools that their children attend. They may have a twinge of conscience about their selfishness, but the teachers-union propaganda about vouchers taking money away from their own schools is powerfully effective. And, they understandably ask, whether caring about your own first is really selfishness or the exercise of parental responsibility. The brutal fact is that twinges of conscience can be easily stifled when they come up against self-interest.
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