The strongest argument for vouchers is moral, Jonathan Rauch writes in the October Atlantic Monthly. It's wrong for rich, white liberals to insist that poor children attend dysfunctional schools that they'd never allow their own children to set foot in. The next best argument is pragmatic, says Rauch: competition would improve the performance of public schools, though the author notes that there's not yet enough evidence to settle this point. However, a new study suggests that vouchers might have an unanticipated benefit: they might have a strong revitalizing effect on poor neighborhoods. Citing the work of Duke economist Thomas Nechyba, Rauch explains that parents who are currently stretching themselves to afford more expensive houses in better school districts would, if vouchers were made available, choose to live in cheaper housing and use vouchers to send their children to private schools. For more see "Reversing White Flight," by Jonathan Rauch, The Atlantic Monthly, October 2002. (For our earlier review of Nechyba's report, see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=49#743.)
