Father Knows Best?

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Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial on the op-ed page detailing the story of Kenneth Levine of Vermont. Mr. Levine faces a variety of charges, including four felony counts, because he rented a room and post-office box in Castleton. Why did he do this? So that his two daughters could spend seventh grade at Castelton Village School instead of the local school in his home district. Mr. Levine's explanation goes like this:

[He] feared his daughters would be harassed, the way his son was, at the public school they were supposed to attend: Otter Valley Union High School.

Ultimately [his son] was expelled for bringing three knives to school (which he did not use); the Rutland Herald reports that some Otter Valley students said they wouild "get" his sisters when they came there.

Well.

Put aside the weird choice here: he sneaks his daughters into a new middle school so that that they'll presumably be grandfathered into a new high school two years down the line. What. Ever.

No, what's way more interesting is the weird moral tone that is assumed by the Journal.

Listen:

The Journal says they are "not for fraud." They say they do not condone bringing knives to school. That said, the Journal opines that Mr. Levine resorted to setting up the Castleton residence only after the district denied his request to let the girls' tuition be transferred to another school.

Then they say this:

If Mr. Levine, a schoolteacher himself, had the money to pay the tuition costs at Castelton, there wouldn't be a problem.


But that's the main issue with school choice today: You have to be rich to exercise it.

That's it? You don't get in unless you're "rich?"

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read that was written by a someone who advocated "school choice."

We sent our kids through K-8 private school. Trust me, it was an enormous challenge. We most certainly were not then (and are not now) "rich." We're already in serious hock and my oldest child is slated to start college in just three short years. We'll make it, somehow. But I'm not asking for your sympathy; just some clearheaded thinking on your part.

We were able to make it with the help of the school and its program of tuition assistance. This program was, and is, funded mostly by private donations to community non-profit organizations. It's not perfect; but it works.

Make no mistake: we were expected to make substantial good-faith sacrifices in our lifestyle. But what better investment is there than your own most precious treasure, your children?

How come Mr. Levine feels that he is exempt from having to make similar sacrifices? Doesn't he believe in his childrens' future?

By the way, I do not feel "victimized" by the politics of the public school system. Does it need improvement? Yes it does. But I don't believe that it needs to be dismantled to make way for a 100% privatized system.

Would it have been nice to have had voucher money in my pocket during their K-8 years? Sure. But something tells me that our private school would have scaled back their tuition assistance so that it would have been a wash in the end.

You can choose to send your kids to private school if you really want to. Or not. I don't care, really. But don't insult my intelligence by couching this as a battle for "school-choice." Because we have school choice now. Period.

Mr. Levine could probably get his daughters into the private school of his choice by making the same sort of choices we did. But he chooses not to do this. Why? I don't know, nor do I really care.

But here's what I do know: that the Journal and its cohorts use the "school-choice" buzzword to obscure their real agenda: the dismantling of the public school system and its teachers' unions.