Doing Choice Right: Help for Students, as Well as PublicSchools, Will Depend on That.

If public education is given a trivial definition, equating it with existing arrangements, including school boards elected in particular ways, large central-office bureaucracies, and teacher hiring and placement set through union agreements, proposals like charters and regulated vouchers surely threaten it. But if public education is defined in a serious way, as a community's effort to make sure its children are all educated for good jobs and constructive citizenship, then choice might advance it. Any form of school choice, whether new options offered by school districts or new independent schools funded by vouchers, can support public education or can harm it.