Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Blog reaction on New Jersey

Jim Wooten, blogger/columnist with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, likes the lawsuit:

There is an answer. It’s contained in the New Jersey suit — though, honestly, I’m not any more desirous of conservative judicial activism than I am of liberal judicial activism. The legislature should do what the suit asks: Give parents a portion of the money set aside to educate their children to be spent as parents choose to purchse the education services their children need. It’s a three-step process: Give parents information about school performance. Give them a stipend or tax credit based on the child’s needs. And, finally, encourage the free market to create new schools to serve like-needs children. Support public schools, but create a new model — one not built for an agrarian economy with stable, supportive two-parent families.

You can’t dump society’s problems at the schoolhouse door, blending classes that include the gifted, slow-learners, the daddy-deprived, discipline problems, the disabled, and those who barely speak English, while expecting success. It’s unrealistic. Give parents choice and the grants to make choice real.

Oh, it’s safe to say we would much rather go through the legislature than the judiciary.  But the thing is, union stonewalling tends to push most voucher programs into the courtroom.