Public Warming to Vouchers, Book Argues

By Mark Walsh

The last book Terry M. Moe wrote about school choice almost single-handedly propelled private school vouchers from a dusty policy idea to a sustained movement.

Now, just as vouchers have suffered big defeats in state ballot initiatives and been shelved at the federal level, the Stanford University researcher is back with a book arguing that Americans, when surveyed in a sophisticated way, strongly favor the concept. And he predicts that a limited voucher system, benefiting poor and minority students initially, will almost inevitably take hold across the country.

"Decades from now, vouchers will come to be an integral part of American education," Mr. Moe declares in Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public , to be published next month by the Brookings Institution,...