Do school vouchers benefit the wealthy? That was the argument made by People for the American Way when Congress enacted the DC voucher program in 2003. Yet it's not the wealthy who benefit from, and favor, the opportunity to choose. Washington Post columnist Fred Hiatt talks about it today, on the heels of a new report from Georgetown University (available in PDF) on the program.

"Strikingly, the report's authors found that the parents aren't just happy; they're involved in their children's education, and increasingly so the longer they are in the program, despite challenges related to time and transportation."

Bertolt Brecht, a German Marxist of the 20th century, famously remarked that the government ought to dissolve the people and elect another. Likewise, defenders of the education establishment are too eager to lay the blame for school failure on the parents. They don't care; they're not involved, and so forth.

But as Hiatt concludes, when people actually have a choice in the matter, they are energized into action.

"It seems that parents -- when they are given choices, when they are provided with information to make those choices meaningful, and when they are treated respectfully as consumers of education -- take their jobs seriously, and participate more and more."

So tell me again why school choice is a bad for children?