Jay Mathews, education reporter for the Washington Post, urges everyone to drop the voucher issue because:

1. “I am tired of the voucher issue.”

Mathews may feel like he’s had to write about vouchers too much, but most of the public hasn’t heard a thing about them, and certainly doesn’t know much about education tax credits, which get far less coverage and are usually called “vouchers” by journalists covering the education beat in any case.

Being tired of covering an issue is a sorry excuse for a journalist to call for its dismissal. Although, I have to say that it’s difficult to see how he could be tired of vouchers when he mentioned them in only 3 out of about 121 articles over the past year. That’s just over 2 percent of his articles.

Perhaps Mathews could look into the bipartisan promise of education tax credits, which he mentions not at all over the past year. Arizona, Rhode Island and Iowa passed tax-credit programs last year, and Pennsylvania expanded its existing business-tax credit program. The Arizona, Iowa, and Pennsylvania bills became law with Democratic governors, and the Rhode Island business-tax credit was born in a legislature controlled by Democrats. Finally, Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer in deep-blue New York proposed an education-tax deduction in his first state budget.

And he could even give more attention to charter schools, which he mentioned only 8 times.

2. “I do not think such programs are going to solve our education crisis.”

I disagree. Just because a reform won’t solve every problem, doesn’t mean that it won’t solve many of them.

And it will solve the education crisis of many individual children.

3. “Few of us are willing to go the voucher route.”

So, because most people don’t want to use a voucher no one should have the chance?

Mathews claims, “I don’t see anything wrong with the [voucher] idea itself.… I could not think of a single thing to say [to try to persuade a low-income mother that using a voucher is wrong] that would not leave me feeling guilty and deceitful.”

How would Mathews’ third objection hold up with a voucher mom as an argument for dropping the issue? How would any of these objections?

4. “It is too risky, and too inconvenient.”

For whom is it too risky and inconvenient? How is it too risky? The parents who desperately need options for their child aren’t bothered by the inconvenience, and they certainly know it’s more risky to leave their child in a failing and dangerous school.

Again, how would this argument fly with a voucher mom?

Mathews goes on to say that “the two major political parties find it very hard to drop the voucher issue,” because “they can raise money on that issue forever, while in the meantime not doing much for schools.”

This is absurd. School choice is no fundraising issue. School choice is being driven by people who believe it will save children and money while improving education across the board. Lawmakers who support school choice, especially Democrats, are siding with principle and risking the wrath of the educational industrial complex. With a monopoly on education, control of school boards, and forced dues, the big education unions have a lot more money to throw around during election season than school choice activists.

Mathews may be tired of the voucher issue, but I think a little more reporting on school choice might do justice to his vocation as a journalist.