STOP THE PRESSES! This is one of the most insightful and powerful arguments for vouchers that I've read. The author (correctly) says that education "in our inner cities…truly is a crisis" and concludes by saying "We must do whatever we can to end the awful cycle of wasted lives—which includes giving vouchers a chance, and thereby giving poor kids a chance to escape the schools that are cruelly not educating them.":

The struggle over vouchers, then, will justifiably continue. Electoral defeats and opinion polls, whether favorable or unfavorable to either side, will not end the debate. The debate continues because there truly is a crisis—not in American education as a whole, but in a specific sector of American education. The crisis is to be found in our inner cities, and among African American and Hispanic children in particular. The tests that are regularly administered by the Department of Education have shown that there is a four-year gap in achievement in every subject area between white high school seniors and minority high school seniors—that is, the scores of the average black or Hispanic senior are about the same as those of the average white eighth-grader. The graduation rate for white children is near 80 percent, but in some cities, including Cleveland, Milwaukee, Memphis, and New York, less than half of African American students graduate from high school. This constitutes nothing less than a national emergency.

Yes, we should reduce class size; yes, we should increase teachers' salaries; yes, we should break up the large factory-style schools in which kids get lost. But surely the emergency requires more. We must do whatever we can to end the awful cycle of wasted lives—which includes giving vouchers a chance, and thereby giving poor kids a chance to escape the schools that are cruelly not educating them.

What makes this article even more compelling is the author: I hope you're sitting down, but it's none other than Diane Ravitch! OK, pick yourself up off the floor... Not the driven-batshit-crazy-by-a-personal-vendetta-against-Joel-Klein Diane Ravitch of recent years, but the insightful scholar of yesteryear – this article was published in October 2001.

This article really shows how fundamentally dishonest her change of heart is. She claims that the reforms she used to embrace haven't worked and that's why she's changed her mind. Fair enough – everyone's entitled to change their mind and reasonable people can disagree on the merits of charter schools, testing, vouchers, accountability/measurement systems, closing underperforming schools, etc.

BUT, no reasonable person can dispute that the schools in our inner cities are abysmal and constitute a crisis. Old Ravitch understood this, but BSC Ravitch (batshit crazy – I like this better than PUS (paid union spokesperson) Ravitch) says not a peep about this… Listening to her today, you'd think our educational system was doing just fine, and the only problem is the Billionaire Boys Club and Corporate Deformers stirring things up, when all that's needed is to leave the poor, suffering unions alone… Pardon me while I puke…

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