Vouching for You

In a recent online article for the National Review, Jay P. Greene took note of Governor and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin's convention announcement that parents of special needs children would have a friend in the White House. Greene writes about taking this a step down the road to providing vouchers for special needs families so that they may move their children to schools that more effectively meet the needs of their special needs children.

I believe this to be a wonderful idea whose time is long over due, much less come. Admittedly, I have a bias toward parental choice in schooling, as I teach at a private school. However, even if I were to be a public school teacher, this would still be my view. Parental freedom versus governmental mandates are usually a simple matter for me to decide on: Parental choice first. Of course I know that not all parental decisions are the best, but second-guessing the average custodial parent who lives with their child and loves their child is not something which I am prepared to do, nor am I prepared to give an impersonal, beaurocractic government such power.

That being said, I realized while reading Mr. Greene's piece that there was an opportunity here in the making. Few would stand in the way of such emotionally charged legislation. And a door would be opened to future expansion of this parental right of choice so that all families could receive vouchers to use in making the educational choice for their children. President McCain's and the Republicans' problem will be in making the first move without seeming to be using special needs children and their parents as a stepping stone to the more generalized usage of vouchers. McCain would have to move delicately, and deliberately, and this will be very difficult.

To even propose such a possible chain of events may seem to many to be grossly unethical. But this is how things get done in Washington, and have always been done. Ronald Reagan noted that you cannot always get 100% of what you want in politics, so go for the 80% that you can get and it will be easier to come back later for the other twenty. I believe that school choice for parents is a civil right, and if we have to start somewhere (and we do), then why not with those families who need the option the most.