An old idea — freedom — catches on at schools

Good news is rare in many fields, but in education pleasant exceptions keep cropping up. Despite corrupt teacher unions’ self-serving resistance to nearly any sensible reforms, various school-choice programs are gaining ground and proving their worth.

Even in the age of Obama, liberals are coming around to the conservative idea that freedom is better than one-size-fits-all in schooling, as it is elsewhere. The easy explanation is that liberals love their children as much as conservatives love theirs, and it’s creating bipartisan agreement that it’s a good idea to adopt ideas that work. In many major cities, this is a revolutionary idea, and it is revolutionizing education.