Education: The Fight over School Choice

Should parents decide where their children are taught?

Detroit's new school-board president, a black, Harvard-educated lawyer named Lawrence Patrick, is in favor of it. So are Sharlyn and Charles Dahl, a white Minnesota couple who are considering ferrying their son across district lines next fall to escape their school's financial problems. But other parents and educators throughout the U.S. are against it, including the four black members of the Boston school committee. Last week those members tried and failed to defeat a new plan that will allow Boston's parents to choose where their children go to school, as long as racial balance is maintained.

Choice. The idea sounds so...

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