In her new book, Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos presents her case for “education freedom.” This goal necessitates that DeVos also put forth her theory of what, exactly, is meant by education freedom, and what differentiates it from, say, your traditional clarion call for “school choice.” This shift, from advocating school choice to advocating educational freedom, has been made over the past year or two by many in the education reform sphere (here, I mean mostly, though not exclusively, conservatives). I, for one, welcome the move. For one thing, education freedom, as DeVos notes in her book, better captures the breadth and depth of mission than does school choice, a term that is not only conceptually bounded to the entity of the schoolhouse but in popular understanding comes to mean “charter schools” and little else. More to the point, however, education freedom better represents the very idea, the animating vision undergirding this reform movement. Chartering is just an authorizing policy vehicle; education savings accounts, vouchers, and scholarship grants are all just funding certifications — it’s freedom, in and through your education, that’s the whole bag. Education freedom is the purpose and the destination. It’s a mission that’s taken on clear salience in the past two years against the backdrop of stifling confinement, as self-serving union goons and anemic administrators...