a Democratic mayor gets it right on Educational Vouchers

Actually, it's not all that uncommon for Democratic leaders to be right on this issue.

Liberals often care much more about the poor-- and some of them are persuaded about the usefulness of competition (instead of a government-run monopoly with tremendous monopoly power) in providing educational services to the poor, and not in the pocket of the teachers' unions. Conservatives profess a greater faith in competition and the marketplace, but often don't care enough about the poor to stomach the resulting battles against the teachers' unions.

From the intro to the interview:

One of several things Democrat John O. Norquist became famous for during his four terms as mayor of Milwaukee was his enthusiastic implementation of a school-voucher system for his city.

The popularity of the school-choice program, which started in 1991 with 1,500 students and now serves more than 12,000 of the city's roughly 110,000 students, has helped to reverse Milwaukee’s population decline, Norquist says. It has lured new residents to the city of 602,000 and it has kept many families from leaving for the suburbs when their kids hit school age.

Norquist is currently the president of the Congress for the New Urbanism in Chicago, where he was Thursday, Jan. 10, when I spoke with him by telephone.

Click here for the interview from TownHall.com with John Norquist, the mayor of Milwaukee...