Does 'Public' Mean 'Good'?

By Chester E. Finn Jr.

As the debate over school choice heats up once again, in the halls of Congress and in many state capitals, a favorite gambit of defenders of the status quo is to damn such changes as "sure to undermine public education" or "bad for the public schools."

They always stress the word "public," for that adjective is believed to carry moral weight and political suasion. It is meant to evoke patriotism and decency, Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann, goodness, virtue, and the American way. If "public" education is inherently good, it follows that anything apt to erode it must be bad.

The "choice" schemes that get tarred with this brush are usually designed to help poor and middle-class children attend non-government schools when their parents judge that this would result in better education. Or greater...