Matt Yglesias notes a new paper which suggests that a free market in charter schools really can improve education, but only as long as the charters take all comers and don’t cherry pick students based on ability:
This is why a reasonably regulated charter school system holds a lot of [promise] but things like vouchers and the new fad for “education tax credits” do not. Once upon a time people on the right could be found to say good things about charter schools, since teacher’s unions often don’t like them. But crucially charter schools don’t do anything to entrench the privileges of the wealthy, so the main right-wing advocacy organizations have moved past them to more inequality-boosting alternatives.
Fair? Or a partisan cheap shot? I vote for fair. How about you?
