But giving poor parents the power to make choices for their children will change the conversation about what is happening to their children. I am totally committed to the idea that a democracy requires an educated populace. An educated populace participates in decision making rather than using tyranny and violence as a way to make decisions. In the final analysis, the question of the value of public education is not tied to a structure, it is tied to whether or not it operates in the public interest. If we are serious about what is happening to poor kids, particularly in American inner cities, then we must love our children s hopes and dreams and prayers more than we love the institutional heritage of the school system.
Charter schools are public schools.
I am not trying to keep the money in a system that the kids have left. The dollars ought to follow the kids. I wanted to have choice in Milwaukee as a superintendent, because no matter how progressive a superintendent is, he or she has relatively little leverage if there s no outside strategy that will impact the system in a material way. One way to do that is to create an environment where people understand that if significant changes are not made, kids will leave, taking the money with them. The money does not belong to the system.