SACRAMENTO, CA - While speaker of the California Assembly,  Antonio Villaraigosa did and said little to distinguish himself. Though supposedly of humble origins, he held a kind of regal bearing, insisting that, instead of reductions in the car tax, Californians would rather have legislators keep that money and spend it for them. To his credit, Villaraigosa did show that term limits work, but in his quest to become mayor of Los Angeles he showcased a major fraud and hypocrisy, one that punishes the poor.

In the Assembly, Villaraigosa was a key ally of the California Teachers Association, the state’s most powerful union, which during the mayoral campaign employed the former Speaker as a “consultant,” for as much as $100,000, according to the Los Angeles Times. What consulting work he actually performs remains unclear, but it is possible to guess.

As a CTA ally, Villaraigosa was a big supporter of public, read “government,” schools. His wife even teaches in one. These schools may be good enough for ordinary people, but not for the former Speaker, who has decided to send his own children to private school.

“I’m doing like every parent does,” he said in a recent debate. “I’m going to put my kids in the best school I can. My kids were in a neighborhood public school until just this year. We’ve decided to put them in a Catholic school. We’ve done that because we want our kids to have the best education they can. If I can get that education in a public school, I’ll do it, but I won’t sacrifice my children any more than I could ask you to do the same.”

This is an amazing confession. According to Villaraigosa, to keep your kids in public school is to “sacrifice” them. His actions show that he knows by experience that the public schools cannot provide the high quality education he and his wife want, otherwise why put them in a Catholic school?

Villaraigosa is not only asking parents to sacrifice their children to a second-class education but insisting that they do so.

Like his handlers at the CTA, Villaraigosa is a strident opponent of parental choice in education. He supports the status quo, in which state bureaucrats, not parents, decide where children will attend school. If parents pull their children out of a public school, their tax money stays in the education monopoly.

The former Speaker, therefore, is not “doing like every parent does.” Every parent does not enjoy fat consulting fees from the state’s most powerful union. Though many parents may want the best education for their children, they are essentially powerless to send their children to the best school they can. By opposing parental choice in education, Mr. Villaraigosa worked very hard to ensure that they stay powerless, and has been amply rewarded for it.

There is a word for this: hypocrisy. And as an increasing number of minority leaders are saying, “injustice” also applies and this is a civil-rights issue. But the former Speaker is not alone.

Later this year PRI will release a study showing how many members of the California Assembly send their children to private schools but oppose choice for everyone else. Meanwhile, look for little improvement in California education until parents are empowered with choice as a matter of basic rights.

- K. Lloyd Billingsley