ABSTRACT
One of the major confusions in the debate over school choice is represented by the "siphon" theme. Parental freedom, it is routinely said, will harm the public schools, or is aimed at the public schools. But church-state complications are only a part, indeed, a small part, of the problem of achieving educational choice in the United States. School choice advocates know that school choice will benefit all children by stimulating all schools to make themselves choiceworthy. America's school choice advocates should not stop until they have achieved something like a Danish or Australian North Star condition. Parents and other groups that are brought on as unsuspecting allies of vested interests-the PTAs, school boards and such, which we call the "altruistic corollaries" of educational finance monopoly's vested interests-are different, however. Dispelling smoke and making it possible for others to do so is an essential part of achieving school choice and parental freedom.
