a prominent Dem supports school choice and charters

A brief except [on education] from an interview with Chicago's Mayor Daley by Collin Levy in the WSJ...

...Mr. Daley has just made what many considered a big sacrifice for Mr. Obama and the new administration, sending them Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan to be education secretary. Mr. Duncan is considered by many as a reformer in the same echelon as New York Schools chief Joel Klein and Washington, D.C., Chancellor Michelle Rhee, and his time in Chicago was marked by a strong commitment to charter schools, as well an improbable ability to work with both teachers' unions and reformers. But he wouldn't have had the opportunity if it weren't for Mr. Daley, who took direct control of the schools, making himself politically accountable for fixing what was widely seen as a broken system.

He laid out a series of goals in the citywide Renaissance 2010 plan, including closing 70 failing schools and opening 100 new ones. The move wasn't popular with neighborhoods and administrators who were losing schools. But Mr. Daley asks: "How long can they fail? Thirty, 40, 50 years?. . . We have to be able to save this generation and other generations."

Mayor Daley also sees an important role for charter schools. "You can't have a monopoly and think a monopoly works. Slowly it dissolves. And I think that charter schools are good to compete with public schools." Nobody says there's something wrong with public universities facing competition from private ones. "I think the more competition we have, the better off we are in Chicago."

But the mayor won't support vouchers. "School choice is hard. You're going back to arguing," he says, trailing off without making clear whether he means the politics. But he does think it's notable that, while federal money and Pell grants can be used to finance an education at a private college, federal money can't be used to help students get a private education at the K-12 level....