School Days: An Essay on the Hoover Institution Conference "Choice and Vouchers: The Future of American Education" (Volume 45) (Essays in Public Policy)

Our public schools are a mess, mediocre in the suburbs and worse in the inner cities. The way to clean up the mess? By ending the virtual government monopoly on grammar and high school education, instead enabling parents to choose the schools their children will attend—in a word, by introducing school choice. California voters will have the chance to vote for a dramatic school choice initiative this November (1993). If enacted, the initiative will virtually remake the school system in California and serve as a model for the rest of the nation. For others, the best way to promote school choice is by supporting private voucher programs. Undertakings such as the CHOICE program in Indianapolis and the Student/Sponsor Partnership in New York represent modest but undeniable proof that school choice can change young lives.