Like this:

My head gets a bit overloaded when considering the variety ideas for education reform. Back in the States I always had a great deal of suspicion of vouchers as they tended to be called for by Republicans, a group with whom I have very few ideas in common. However, after having had children and having learned about about No Child Left Behind/the National Curriculum, I’m inclined these days to think that education should be as far removed from something so flighty and compulsive (in all senses of the word) as the central government as possible. Charter schools seem to be a bright spot, but they are so beholden to regulation, from what I understand. Of course home education is not for everyone. Indeed, if we had a proper choice of good places to send the kids, I’m not completely convinced it would be our choice. That said, what are the chances of a parent-friendly Summerhill-type place popping up?

I am a huge supporter of a library-style non-compulsive education model, as I’ve said many times. This would require the government to relinquish nearly all resources and funding to communities. If individual families are going to have a say in the provision in their area, doesn’t that sort of imply the necessity of what is in essence a voucher system?

As it turns out, if you ignore the din of the moralistic right-wingers, and seek out the liberty-lovers, the rhetoric sounds a lot more palatable. From the Cato blog (libertarian):

[Some claim] that choice supporters want to “eliminate public education.” On the contrary, choice supporters are fundamentally more committed to public education than anyone who refuses to consider the market alternative.

“Public Education” is a set of ideals. It is not a particular institution. It is the ideal that all children should have access to a good education, regardless of family income; that schools should prepare students not just for success in private life but for participation in public life; and that our schools should foster harmonious relations among the various groups making up our pluralistic society — or at the very least not create unnecessary tensions among them.

School choice advocates are more committed to those ideals than is anyone wedded to the current district-based school system, because that system is inferior in all of the above respects to a universally accessible education marketplace.

So, depending on who you ask, voucher supporters are not necessarily upper middle-class folks who would be content to leave poor kids to the wolves. It is possible to reconcile vouchers with public education provided the term is snatched from the powers-that-be and reworked to mean something more holistic–a definition I’d be happier with, incidentally.

What I’m not sure of is what the Cato Institute’s proposals entail specifically. I hope a long wander through their site will help to clear that up. In the meantime, my sister will surely laugh at me for my increasingly libertarian bent..

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