Vouchers, cont'd

My friend Michael has, by posting this article on the failure of the voucher program in Utah, poured figurative lemon juice into my figurative paper cut.  Argh.  The article's claims are familiar, but no less misguided for being familiar.  Let's start with this:

Voters in conservative Utah have soundly rejected one of the pet causes of the modern conservative movement, with 62 percent voting Tuesday to kill a school voucher program enacted by the Utah Legislature.

In fact, choice in education is not a "pet cause of the modern conservative movement."  If it were -- that is, if conservatives were more consistently behind choice -- it would have more success in beating back the "blob" of the government-school lobby.  Yes, choice-in-education enjoys support from those who care about markets and competition (e.g., Friedman and Epstein), but also from those who care about opportunity for low-income and minority children (e.g., Jack Coons and Joe Viteritti), and who care about religious freedom (e.g., Pope John Paul II, Judge Michael McConnell).  School choice fails primarily because a combination of teacher-union self-interest and some (otherwise conservative) suburbanites' desire for lower taxes and, shall we say, less diverse government schools.

More:

In fact, in every part of the country and every time the question has been put to them, voters have rejected the concept of private school vouchers. They have done so in blue states such as California, and in the reddest of red states such as Utah. People are sending a message, and it's not one that opponents of our public school systems want to hear. They're telling their political leaders that they believe in public schools and are committed to making them work.

Let's put aside the question whether, given the massive and misleading campaign that was mounted by the "blob", we really heard, in this election, the voice of the people of Utah.  The political marketplace of ideas is what it is, after all, and I have to live with the results.  But it really is a bit much, for those of us involved in education-reform efforts, to hear the side that always and everywhere is trying to resist popular reform measures (e.g., merit pay for teachers) suddenly crowing about how "the people have spoken.")  More:

There's no question that the public school system faces critical challenges, particularly here in Georgia. Far too many kids drop out before they get a degree, condemning themselves to a lifetime of struggle in poor-paying jobs. Far too many who do graduate lack the skills and know-how to compete in a rapidly globalizing, knowledge-based economy.

But to their credit, the American people understand that vouchers would address none of those problems. To the contrary, using taxpayer dollars to finance private education would bleed money, students and political support from public schools. Vouchers would represent an act of surrender, cutting large numbers of children adrift to fend for themselves.

The "American people understand" no such thing'; they couldn't, because it is not true.  The "education" that school-vouchers would pay for is education, full stop.  It is not "private education."  The outputs of private schools are, not less than (and almost certainly more than) than those of government-run schools, public goods.  The notion that vulnerable students, who are being denied opportunities by dysfunctional government-school bureaucracies and teacher-union-driven policies, have to stay in badly performing schools, because they cannot afford alternatives, while wealthy families are able to exercise "choice" by moving to better districts or paying for private schools, is no more attractive than any other hostage-taking argument should be.  The anti-choice argument is, in the end, the argument that parents who want to form their children in and through a religious education should have to pay twice, and that poor parents and children who cannot afford to escape government schools that are organized around principles determined primarily by teacher-union members' self-interest should not be permitted to escape.  Yuck.