America embraces these principles by design and would abandon them at her peril. Our public schools offer quality education to our children and are the heart of our communities. We must ensure that their classrooms continue to provide the finest education possible. But alternatives to public education tend to strengthen public education. Taken together, public and private institutions sustain the diversity that has made our culture rich.
Excellence demands competition among students and among schools.
We must always meet our obligation to those who would fall behind without our assistance. This freedom to choose what type of education is best for each child has contributed much to America's reputation for excellence in education. Unfortunately, the high plane of literacy and the diversity of education we have achieved is threatened by policymakers who seem to prefer uniform mediocrity to the rich variety that has been our heritage. As competition has lessened, so has quality. As taxes and inflation have ballooned, choices have evaporated.