Something must be in the water. The United Federation of Teachers wants to open its own charter schools and the federal government wants to give New York City money for a voucher program. Both of these developments were virtually inconceivable even just one year ago.

These sudden breakthroughs are a testament to the power of school choice, fueled by growing parental discontent with failing district schools and the growing national momentum triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 landmark decision in the Zelman case upholding the constitutionality of Cleveland’s voucher program.

There has been intense interest in vouchers since the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman popularized the concept in the 1950s, especially among libertarians. But parental interest in school choice is not motivated by ideology. Most moms and dads just want something better for their sons and daughters. The “something better” generally is a safe school with quality academics. Most parents have come to the conclusion that district schools in New York City, with rare exceptions, aren’t getting the job done. Whether the school is public or private is a secondary issue to them.

It’s not surprising, then, that public charter schools and private school choice vouchers are popular now.

New York has tried charter schools over the past five years and the parental response has been tremendous, with most charter schools having very large waiting lists.

At the same time, most observers have figured out that public charter schools, while an important part of the solution, cannot possibly create enough spaces by themselves for the more than 300,000 students presently trapped in New York City’s failing district schools. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s current plan for 50 new charter schools is a good start, but it simply will not reach enough students.

Private schools are an obvious existing alternative, but parts of this system are facing a sweeping financial crisis. Aside from the high-end private academies that serve the city’s wealthier residents, the more typical and prevalent Catholic and other private schools in New York face two contradictory trends: a tremendous growth in the number of families that would like to send their children to such schools, and a precipitous decline in the number of families that can afford to pay the tuition to go there. This dichotomy partly is a natural result of the changing demographics of the city, especially the ongoing middle-class flight to the suburbs.

A publicly funded scholarship program that provides families trapped in failing district schools with the means to attend private schools is a solution to this problem. If the scholarship value is set high enough, a supply-side effect will result, and private schools will be encouraged to expand the number of seats they have available as the supply of customers expands. Importantly, research by Harvard University’s Caroline Hoxby and the Manhattan Institute’s Jay Greene also suggests that, based on the early evidence, voucher programs are encouraging improvement throughout the larger universe of public district schools. Simply put, if students have options, all schools improve.

It is ironic that New York has taken so long to consider a voucher initiative. Although New Yorkers are fond of viewing the city as the intellectual capital of the world, school choice is one issue where New York has been lagging behind intellectual and policy developments elsewhere.

Consider the following significant school choice moments in the nation’s history. Minnesota was the first state to adopt a charter school law in 1991 (New York was the 34th state to do so in December 1998 only after a big push by Governor Pataki).The nation’s first voucher law was passed in Wisconsin in 1990. The first tuition tax credit laws were adopted in Iowa (1987), Arizona, and Minnesota (both in 1997), and Minnesota has had a tuition tax deduction on the books since 1955. Maine and Vermont have had programs for more than a century that allow towns that opt not to operate public schools to allow residents to receive publicly funded subsidies to attend public or nonreligious private schools of their choice.

Now, 40 states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws, including every single state with a major urban population. Publicly funded voucher programs exist in Milwaukee, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and Florida. Tax credit legislation has been approved in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.

As the political trends shift in favor of broader school choice options, voucher programs keep popping up all across the country.

Earlier this month, for example, Utah approved the first new school-choice plan of 2005, a targeted scholarship program for students with disabilities, similar to the earlier McKay Scholarship program in Florida.

According to Clint Bolick of the national Alliance for School Choice, school-choice legislation is “seriously in play” in 11 other states. These states include Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. School-choice efforts here are being pushed by governors such as South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, Ohio’s Bob Taft, Florida’s Jeb Bush, and Texas’s Richard Perry.

In New York, the political class has been a bit slow to pick up on the growing support for school choice. The leading Democratic candidates for mayor of New York City all toe the teachers union line, while Mayor Bloomberg, looking to avoid further controversy in an election year, ducks any questions about vouchers.

State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the leading Democratic candidate for governor in 2008, supports public charter schools, but has been largely silent when it comes to discussing publicly funded school-choice vouchers.

The only major state-level political figure to embrace vouchers is New York’s Secretary of State Randy Daniels, a Pataki appointee. Mr. Daniels, a likely Republican gubernatorial candidate if Mr. Pataki does not seek re-election next year, enthusiastically embraces charters and vouchers. As a Democrat turned Republican, a deacon in a prominent African-American church in Harlem, and a former foreign and national correspondent for CBS News, Mr. Daniels is not a typical New York political figure. Mr. Daniels’s current position as secretary of state also is the same post that Mario Cuomo used as his launching pad to higher elective office.

Ironically, though, the biggest impetus for vouchers in New York City may come from outside of New York City. In a scoop broken by New York Sun reporter Luiza Ch. Savage, the Bush administration indicated that New York City would be a “strong contender” for winning federal money to establish a voucher program, along the lines of the D.C. voucher initiative launched by the Bush administration last year. Under that plan, D.C. school-choice vouchers were funded with new federal dollars rather than out of the city’s own school budget.

“I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help you” has long been viewed as a bad punch line. But now, the Bush administration’s offer may be the best hope for breaking through New York’s calcified political culture and getting parents immediate access to a safe, high-quality education for their children.

Thirty years ago, President Ford’s skepticism about financially bailing out New York City prompted the famous newspaper headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Now, President Bush is offering a lifeline to the city’s children. While New York’s politicians may be hesitant to take up the administration’s offer, the parents of the more than 300,000 children trapped in the city’s failing district schools assuredly have a different view.

Mr. Carroll is president of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability and founder of the Brighter Choice Charter School for Boys and the Brighter Choice Charter School for Girls in Albany.