Confining voucher recipients to only those in districts that vote them in, reassures voters that integration issues will not surface in their communities. With the passage of a statewide initiative giving districts the right to implement parental choice programs, the choice battleground suddenly changes. The huge union machine so effective at spending millions on maudlin commercials statewide now finds itself fighting little campaigns where such a strategy is ineffective and cost prohibitive. The education bureaucracy's greatest weakness is its isolation from the people living in dysfunctional districts. With vouchers enjoying strong support in these districts, school reform advocates, even if outspent, will be more than a match for the faceless, and usually hated, education outsiders.
Charter schools cloud the issue of parental choice, and can be considered a diversion tactic.
Let charters find their own way under existing legislation and compete with the marketplace in failing districts that elect the parental choice option. A puzzle wrapped in an enigma inside a puzzle. With half a million students, a budget larger than some countries and land area to match, the district deserves separate, and careful, scrutiny by choice proponents. The break-up issue is popular in the Valley. Affirmative action in magnet schools is also controversial.