From Peter Bronson:

Let’s suppose Acme Widget builds a better mousetrap. People beat a path to their door and even sleep in lawn chairs overnight just to get on a waiting list.

Amalgamated Widget, meanwhile, spends millions to build new factories and gives raises to its workers - but they don’t build better mousetraps. They tell customers they’re stuck with the old ones and raise prices while sales drop 28 percent.

That’s not from Bankruptcy for Dummies. Amalgamated Widget is Cincinnati Public Schools.

In April, Chris Kearney of Westwood waited all night to sign his son up for a popular magnet school, Dater Montessori. Kearney was first in a line of 60 parents, but he was told there was no place for his “non-black male” son, the Enquirer reported.

His son eventually got in, but Kearney said, “It makes no sense to ration something that is wildly popular.”

Here’s something else that makes no sense: While enrollment has dropped 28 percent in the past 10 years, CPS is spending hundreds of millions on new schools and will soon ask for a tax hike for more spending.

Obviously, CPS is not a business or it would be way past Chapter 11, somewhere in Chapter 23 of bankruptcy by now. Public schools were not created to make a profit. They were created to profit society by educating children. There are many dedicated teachers and good schools in CPS.

But Kearney’s right: Why not respond to demand for more magnet schools that keep families in CPS and in the city?

Maybe it’s because government monopolies don’t have to care what customers want. And they don’t want competition from vouchers and charter schools that do as well or better at 70 percent of the cost. So Gov. Ted Strickland is trying to give teacher unions what they want: kill vouchers and charters that give choices to poor families.