At least that what I think he must be doing in order to go through life totally oblivious to the facts in front of him.
Another fine example will be disgracing the Crossroads section of Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In this article he drags out the old, tired bit about school choice again.
McIlheran actually starts out well, pointing out how parents have a right to make choices for their children. I fully concur. A parent does have the right to make decisions for their child. The parent should be able to choose what the child will eat, what the child will wear, which doctor will treat the child, and so forth. This is as long as the child is not put in harm's way of course.
But then McIlheran goes off course and into his own plane of reality again. He states that:
One premise of Milwaukee's school choice program is that parents tend to choose - not always, but often enough - academically superior schools if they have a chance.
He goes on to say that "research" shows that school choice will be shown to be academically better. All that has been debunked so much, I won't bother with it here.
But according to a study released last October-a study done by WPRI nonetheless, a major proponent for school choice-shows reality a bit differently than the one that McIlheran perceives. Said study shows that some 90 percent of parents who put their children into school choice even bother looking at which schools are strongest academically. They instead put their focus on tangents that are more important to them. These could range anywhere from musical programming to religious orientation to geographical location.
Even strong advocates for school choice, like Dr. Howard Fuller, were forced to take a few steps back, at least until WPRI issued a "corrective."
So even though his own side is saying that school choice may not be cracking up to what they had hoped it to be, McIlheran still goes blithely along, arguing lost arguments.
Next, I'm sure he'll be telling us how everything is going splendidly in Iraq.
