John Goodman: “[T]he opportunity to attend a good public school these days is rationed through the housing market. And those opportunities are far removed from what life was like for the parents of today’s parents. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s, federal judges – most of them well intentioned – put the goal of integration above just about every other goal. By the time they threw up their hands and conceded defeat, the public school systems in many of our inner cities were just as segregated as when they began. And, as law professor Lino Graglia explained in Disaster by Decree, the judges left the public school system in shambles. As the judges retreated, the teachers’ unions stepped in. As they gained power, it became increasingly difficult to do anything to improve failing schools. And at the local level, the party that is often in the best position to improve the schools seems to be owned lock, stock and barrel by the unions. … While misguided housing policies are pricing middle income families out of the market both for houses and good schools, more and more of family ‘income’ is in the form of non-wage benefits – such as health insurance. That means less take home pay to cover such things as a home mortgage. Under Obamacare that problem will likely to get worse. Much worse.”