Pro-choice?

• Author: Hazlett, Thomas W.

At a friendly dinner bash some months back, a woman reflected upon how her schooling had affected her upbringing. "I went to Catholic school," she said, "and I suppose that's why I hate the Church." This prompted a similar introspection among her dinner guests and hurled a revelation at me. "You know, I went to public schools," I pointed out, "and that's why I hate the government."

I was reminded of this incident by the hysteria gripping California as it confronts the so-called School Choice Initiative. This November, voters will decide whether or not parents should be given education vouchers for $2,600--about half the annual per-pupil operating expense of California's public schools--redeemable at any school, public or private. With so many Assistant Deputy Vice Principals for Extracurricular Activities' jobs on the line, there is naturally considerable panic. But the frenzied pace of scare-mongering in the press exceeds even the lofty heights attained in the 1978 campaign against Prop. 13, when cataclysmic reports (such as the UCLA business school forecast that tax relief would plunge the entire nation into a depression of 1930s proportions) dominated the media.

My favorite fantasy concoction in this skirmish involves the allegation that the measure is a plot, essentially, by the Antichrist. Mainstream news organizations report that "witches' covens" will spring into the education market just to soak up "public funds." What else could one expect from a referendum fathered by radical evangelicals, as newspaper writers have identified the propellants of the school-choice measure. (Milton Friedman, a vocal choice supporter, is--to my knowledge--the only Christian fundamentalist named "Uncle Miltie.")

A terror campaign is being waged by the public-school cartel, drowning in public funds of their own. They are prudently willing to spend money to keep making money; at least $10 million will be poured into the disinformation offensive now in progress. Apparently, it is being swallowed whole by journalists who know that "choice" initiatives are never progressive unless contained within the walls of the mother's womb. (I have recommended that supporters of the proposition rename it The Post-Fetus School Choice Initiative.)

The slander that makes me giggle the loudest is the attack on the quality of private schools. Witches might run some pretty wacky schoolhouses and, Halloween parties excepted, disappoint a few young scholars. (Assuming they...