The Private Schools of Politicians?

Years ago, Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley voted against Oregon’s charter school legislation. He lost.

Later, he and his wife applied to send two of their kids to a newly forming charter school. The school was late in starting up, so he lost again as the application wasn’t acted on.

But now that Willamette Weekly leaked the application, it’s getting lots of attention.

Merkley first denied the report. Then, when the actual applications were produced, well, he stopped denying.

It’s funny how politicians who vote lockstep with teachers’ unions and the establishment monopoly school system keep on undermining their own publicly espoused positions. They keep voting with their dollars and good sense in their private lives … against the bad sense of their official loyalties.

It’s a revelation of attitude: Merkley and other such politicians believe that choice is only for the few. Them.

Steve Buckstein, a founder of Oregon’s Cascade Policy Institute, puts the story in  perspective. He quotes a famous Supreme Court judgment from 1922, about an Oregon law to outlaw all private schools. The justices said No Way. And insisted that “the child is not the mere creature of the state.”

Too many politicians agree with this only when it comes to their own children. We could use their help making education better for all children. Schooling should be made to fit kids, not schools to fit … politicians’ re-elections.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.