A friend of mine (Matt Ladner, a senior fellow at the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute) wrote a piece in the National Review Online today on school choice. I found the article interesting not only because it takes a hard look at biased fear-mongering on the part of school choice opponents, but also because it uses the writings of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, NY) to help support its premise.

As you'll read in Matt's article, Moynihan was getting frustrated with Clinton-era staffers who would extol the virtues of their various programs, but who failed to provide any concrete evidence that such programs were, in fact, effective. Senator Moynihan wanted two studies to support one of Clinton's programs. Two studies to show that this particular program was achieving the desired and promised results. Senator Moynihan received the two studies, but after reviewing them he found that they did not actually support the program, but instead concluded that similar programs did not show positive results.

Matt decided to take the same approach to forcing opponents of school choice to prove their continuing refrain of "school choice is bad for children." He wants someone - anyone! - to show him two studies that support the conclusion that school choice is a bad thing. Matt first asked an Arizona Republic columnist, Jon Talton, to provide two studies to support an editorial he'd written calling a school choice program "right-wing utopianism." If Talton produced the studies, Matt would take Talton out to dinner. Steak dinner. With dessert. Talton ignored Matt's challenge. Probably because he didn't have the studies. They either don't exist, or Talton is just too ignorant to know where to find them.

Matt moved on to the entire state of Arizona. If anyone in the whole state could provide him with two studies supporting their position that school choice is bad for children, Matt would buy dinner. Again, no takers.

So, Matt's now asking the entire United States. If anyone out there can provide Matt with two studies to prove that school choice is a bad thing, he is going to buy you dinner! Steak! There are some great steak places in Arizona, you know. Matt's condition for the studies is that they are random-assignment control group studies. The studies can either support the premise that "the attitudes of parents who have actually used a private school-choice program showing anything less than substantial improvement in satisfaction with their child's school" or "that show students learn significantly less after choosing to go to school elsewhere." That's all they need to do.

But, let's face it. No one will take Matt up on his offer, because no one will be able to find two independent studies, conducted in accordance with good scientific practices. They don't appear to exist. Studies from such liberal institutions as Harvard, Georgetown and Stanford continually show that children in school choice programs learn more, do better, and have higher parent satisfaction levels than children in public schools.

Parents who live in school districts where the under-performance is the norm should have the right to send their children elsewhere. If the parents can't afford the tuition at a private school that performs above their local public school, they should have access to vouchers to help them offset the costs of the education their children deserve. Our kids do not deserve to be forced into an educational system run by bureaucrats who are more concerned with money than with educating our children. If the public schools are so worried about the competition that vouchers and other school choice programs will bring, perhaps they should be focusing on improving their own services, rather than trying to eliminate programs that give a helping hand to people who truly need it by manufacturing statistics.

Teacher's unions are adamant that school choice will spell the end of their monopoly on education. Well, I don't really care, as long as my children and their peers are provided with the absolute best education in the world. Maybe it's free market Capitalism that will ultimately save our educational system. It's certainly headed down the road to nowhere in its current state.

There are too many good teachers out there, and far too many children willing and able to learn, to allow our educational system to fall into disrepair. Take a stand and support parents' rights to choose the best educational options for their children.

Matt - one thing... Do you think it's the steak dinner that's turning people off? Wouldn't you have more luck if you offered to buy a nice Vegan dinner, instead?