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American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker , in a Nov. 2, 1981, Commentary on “The Tax Credit Debate: Arguments for and Against Aid to Private Schooling,” took issue with two of what he called the “slogans” then in use on the subject:

Choice. We want choice for all children, all families, including the poor. Obviously, with a tax credit, the choice will still be limited for the poor. The choice will still be there for the rich, and it will allow some people in the middle class to have a choice they now don’t have. But the final element of choice is really not that of the student or the parent. It’s the private school that decides.

I would like advocates of vouchers or tuition tax credits to advocate a system where no school that receives any of this public money is permitted to exclude any child or kick out any child, except on the same rules that exist...