School choice opponents love to declare that “unlike private schools, public schools have to teach everyone.” Well it turns out that that’s not really true. As Dan Keating and V. Dion Haynes expose in today’s Washington Post, when kids’ disabilities get too tough, the D.C. Public Schools turn to private institutions, where disabled students can finally get the specialized attention they need.

This doesn’t just happen in Washington, though. According to the National Association of Private Special Education Centers, almost every state in the union has disabled children attending private institutions at public expense. Unfortunately, at least in the nation’s capital, the public schools tend to greatly understate what they are doing, either as a result of bureaucratic dysfunction, as Keating and Haynes suggest, or simply because no one likes getting caught in a lie.

Whatever the reason, for public schools the truth hurts.