>>Sure, but vouchers are not the only exit route the
>>government could open from shitty public schools. The best
>>thing they can do is to make the public schools less shitty.
>
>Well, we've been waiting for the government to make the
>schools less shitty for decades, IMO, it's time to try
>something different.

This is why I'm so happy about this thing at Howard, and hopeful that other schools follow their lead, especially public universities which could pull it off, using state funding, without charging tuition.

I think that's our difference of opinion here. I like the charter school movement as much as you do. But I think it's dangerous for the government to lump all non-public schools together, funding them through vouchers which are spent according to popular opinion rather than academic quality.

>If the government can find a way to
>make schools less shitty, great, but why should a poor child
>have to wait around for this to happen while the parents of
>a rich child have the options of pulling them out and
>sending them to a better school?

Sure, but in the vast majority of cases, vouchers are not enough to cover tuition as a good private school. The problem is that there are also shitty private schools. If a school is free from government oversight, and is encouraged to cut costs in order to survive on voucher money alone, they are likely to do so by hiring unqualified teachers.