Joanne Jacobs has a nice discussion of Florida Democrats opposing charter schools, which she begins with this quote from a John Tierney article in the New York Times that I hadn’t read since it requires a subscription to Times Select:
Democrats once went to court to desegregate schools. But in Florida they’ve been fighting to kick black students out of integrated schools, and they’ve succeeded, thanks to the Democratic majority on the State Supreme Court.
Since judges seem to be increasingly voting as partisans on controversial issues, and nominated or opposed because of their likely partisan votes, it makes less and less sense to appoint them instead of electing them. For that matter, if they are little more than politicans in black robes, it makes less and less sense even to have judicial review.
UPDATE
An editorial in today’s Los Angeles Times predictably applauds the Florida Supreme Court opinion, noting the lack of “accountability” of charter schools that “don’t have to meet the same rigorous and expensive standards as public schools.”
Alas, the editorial was silent on why, despite this vauted accountability and required standards-meeting, so many public schools are so bad that many parents would like their children to escape from them.
Alas indeed, John. These folks might wonder for a moment why parents wish to get their kids out of these schools, if they have such “rigorous and expensive standards.”
If only.