re: Somebody please explain Landry's "school choice" plan to me like I'm 5.

The older I get and the more time I spend working with government staffers, the more I question initiatives like this, no matter what side they're coming from.

Elected officials and their advisors know a little about everything. Someone with an agenda will put a bug in their ear, and if it makes sense to them and agrees with their overall political position, they'll run with it. As long as it makes sense to them in theory (and/or will financially benefit one of their supporters), they tell their staff to make it happen and then they move onto the next issue. The staff then send out talking points to the whole team and become responsible for getting approval from the necessary governing bodies. Once that's done, they toss it on the plate of a bureaucrat to implement.

There is never much forethought to 5 or 10 years down the road or what the actual endgame will be. And they never account for the biggest variable, the people who are the end users or beneficiaries of whatever it is that they're pushing out. You can set up system, but you cannnot control or accurately predict how people will use or abuse that system.

It's all about the elected official naming and pushing out a program that their communications team will frame as a win so it can be added to their resume for the next election.