The Patriot Post® · Krauthammer: To Help Inner Cities, Embrace School Choice

Speaking on Fox News about the rioting that rocked Baltimore early this week, which included teenagers attacking law enforcement and damaging property, political analyst Charles Krauthammer said the upheaval is rooted in two issues: A lack of fathers, and abysmal schools. “Of the first, we have no idea how to solve that,” he contends, but the second problem is easily rectified by embracing school choice — something Democrats and Big Labor are vehemently opposed to.

“They deliberately held back the police for reasons that these were, 15-, 16-year-old kids. If a 16-year-old kid is torching a CVS store, a drugstore, the police have to do something. They can’t just say, ‘Well, they are underage, or they are too young, so I’m going to give them a pass.’ …

"There are two issues in the inner cites. One is single parenthood, and the other is the worst schools on earth. Of the first, we have no idea how to solve that. Of the second, we do. If you can'​t improve the schools, give the kids a choice to go to better schools. The parents begged to have that opportunity, but the teachers unions won’t allow it and thus the Democrats won’t. If you want to do something, let them choose their school.”

Addendum: Columnist Terence Jeffrey makes the same argument in his latest piece, “Give Every Child in Baltimore a $17,329 School-Choice Voucher.” He writes, “[O]ne way to start moving things back in the right direction is to give every parent in Baltimore a voucher worth $17,329 that they can redeem at any school — public, private or religious — to which they choose to send their child. Why $17,329? Actually, it probably should be a bit more than that. But, according to the U.S. Department of Education, $17,329 is the total expenditure that the Baltimore City Public Schools made per student in the 2010-2011 school year, the latest year for which the Department of Education has reported this data.”