It's hard to deny that parents should have the right to educate their children in the best manner possible. Right now, most CPS teachers are wealthy enough to send their children to private schools, and 46 percent do. The 67 percent of CPS parents who are below the poverty line cannot afford this luxury. A voucher system, in which the public schools would have to compete with more efficient private schools, might give parents that choice.

Support for vouchers is incredibly high among Chicago minorities: 58 percent of Chicago Blacks and 63 percent of Chicago Hispanics support private school vouchers, according to a recent survey by Northern Illinois University.

But the Chicago Principals' Association is squarely against any competition with more efficient, less costly forms of education. Vouchers, they claim, will make it impossible for public schools to provide a quality education for Chicago's children. As if they were getting it now, with incredible budget overruns and a bloated central bureaucracy.

Throwing money at the problem is not going to solve anything. CPS teachers are already well paid, and their latest contract guarantees a 7 percent per annum raise, ahead of inflation and most private school teachers' salary increases. Furthermore, Chicago already spends $5300 per student, which TEACH America notes is the sixth highest spending per student of the 35 districts in Chicago's metropolitan area. Most private schools in Chicago provide a better education at half the cost (or less) of CPS.

Vouchers may not be the best or only solution to America's abysmal education situation, but in refusing to even consider reform or vouchers, the Chicago Principals' Association is doubly guilty. It neither wants to be held accountable by LSCs nor wants to have to compete on the open market for voucher money.

It seems Chicago's public school principals don't even want to listen to parents, let alone consider any substantive reform.

Perhaps it is still true, as former Chicago Alderman Mathias "Paddy" Bauler said in 1955 after Mayor Richard J. Daley's election, that "Chicago ain't ready for reform."