In the land of the free, brimming with choices among everything from toothpastes to doctors, it’s upsetting not to have a choice among schools for your children.

But it’s infuriating when, per the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, you get a letter admitting that the school your child attends is so academically lousy that your family is legally eligible to transfer to a better one, but there are no better schools available to you. Versions of this letter went out all over the country, especially in poor urban areas and tiny districts with few schools. These letters will come with increasing frequency, mostly to low-income families, as more and more schools “fail” according to the law.

Are the feds purposely torturing low-income parents? When they wrote the law, they easily could have inserted the word “viable” in front of the word “choice” where NCLB demands that low-performing schools offer families the choice of other schools. That would have forced the states to find ways to offer authentic choices. And expanding options would have produced far happier parents, students and academic results than NCLB has produced so far.

Recently, advocates for school choice were horrified to see Utah’s statewide voucher referendum go down in flames. Patrick Byrne, the dot-com executive who championed the initiative, called the referendum a “state IQ test” that Utah failed. Utah families will be trapped in the existing public school box for some time to come.

I’m not a fan of vouchers, for reasons I’ll explain momentarily, but even I was horrified by the spectacle of teachers’ unions from across the nation — California, Washington, Colorado, Kentucky, Connecticut and twice as many more — assembling money to vanquish the Utah referendum. The National Education Association and its front organization, Communities for Quality Education, dropped just under $3.5 million into what should have been a local campaign.

Why would they want to stop Utah’s parents from having choices? Because allowing parents to choose among schools tends to reduce the number of unionized teachers. Not always, mind you. The Green Dot charters in California are unionized and popular with parents, though most charters are not unionized.

In any case, school choice gives parents the power to vote with their feet. They are no longer at the mercy of schools that are unresponsive to parents, children and poor academic results. Unions protect teachers no matter what. So school choice pits the interests of the teachers’ unions directly against the interests of families.

There are four ways to offer parents options among schools. Two of the strategies spur innovation, introduce gentle competition, and encourage unique, creative experiences for all children. But the other two strategies undermine, instead of contribute, to the democratic goal of preparing an educated citizenry.

The problematic ones first. The first strategy is what we’ve had all along — people with resources buy their way into private school or into a neighborhood with good public schools. Americans have sorted themselves into homogeneous communities and drawn district boundaries around them. Parents with money can choose. Socio-economic segregation thrives, concentrating low-income kids in schools no one would choose.

The second strategy is to give families tax-financed vouchers for tuition at participating private schools.

European countries use vouchers liberally, even paying for private religious schools. But those countries require all students to take national tests no matter where they go, holding private and public schools equally accountable for student results. American private schools administer their own tests and are not held publicly accountable to anyone, so it’s impossible to see what they’re doing right or wrong according to tests or other comparable data. Some private schools would be happy to conform to public accountability, but voucher initiatives never ask them to. Parents need good information to make informed choices.

Charter schools, the third strategy, are publicly accountable, along with everyone else in the public system — same tests, same statistical reports on demographics, spending, school climate and the rest. Charters have been a huge shot in the arm to American education. Granted, they are not a panacea. Some are mediocre, and states have closed down about 5 percent of them either because of fiscal mismanagement or academic failure. But successful charters often do innovative work in a more personal, welcoming atmosphere that parents deeply appreciate. Often they have a higher-than-average share of challenged students. Charters have been a mercy for many parents, but there are not nearly enough of them to satisfy parents’ desire for alternatives.

Last, and least well understood of the four strategies, is “cross-district” choice. Massachusetts has several programs of this kind. The idea is to allow students to attend schools outside of their local school-district boundaries, when there is room for them. The state and municipal per-pupil expenditure follows the child to the receiving district.

If the NCLB law had been serious about authentic, publicly accountable school choice, it would have required that cross-district choice be available when there are no other viable options. Even if the viable district right next door can take only a small number of students, this strategy provides more choice with existing resources, available right away. Cross-district choice is by far the fastest way to empower parents, liberate some students from dreadful schools and shake up the complacency of unappealing schools.

Parental involvement begins with the American way of life: shopping. Parents would become better parents by having to study their options and make choices.

And schools would be better schools for having to attract families.

Julia Steiny is a former member of the Providence School Board; she now consults and writes for a number of education, government and private enterprises. She welcomes your questions and comments on education. She can be reached by e-mail at juliasteiny@cox.net or c/o EdWatch, Education and Employment, Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, R.I. 02902.