Choice advocates favor the idea of “voting with your feet.”

Peter Greene explains why it doesn’t work and will never work.

“A parental foot vote carries no weight. And since parents get their foot votes by trading away actual votes for board members, access to any transparency about school management or finances, and in some cases even simple access to people in charge, it’s a lousy trade. The only thing they can do is that bipedal vote thing, and as we’ve seen, doesn’t carry much weight.

“Vote with your feet” is just a nicer way for charter operators to say “Take it or leave it.”

“Meanwhile, in places like New Orleans, Florida and North Carolina, legislators continue to aid the invisible hand by cutting the competition off at the knees. The more parents are driven toward charter/choice schools, the less those parents matter, and the easier charter operators have it. So let’s systematically gut public education. If people won’t venture out of the public school building– if they won’t vote with their feet the way we need them to– then let’s coax ’em out of that building by setting fire to it. Then it doesn’t matter where the stampede heads– as long as we can catch a sliver of it, we’re good.

“Foot voting is never going to empower parents. In fact, since foot voting requires parents to give up all other forms of leverage, it’s an approach that leaves them with nothing but tired shoe leather.”