I think it's a matter of framing. You can parse congestion charges as either a tax on pollution and congestion, or a marketized way of redistributing a scarce r

I think it's a matter of framing. You can parse congestion charges as either a tax on pollution and congestion, or a marketized way of redistributing a scarce resource more efficiently. It logically and intuitively fits within a broad range of ideological schema; it's both a collectivist means of pricing externalities and an individualist means of allocating resources. The same can't be said of charging for in-demand school places - from a collectivist perspective, such a policy would be read as punishing poorer families for aspiration and disincentivizing social mobility. It's plausible that essentially the same policy could be reframed by redistributing funding from higher-performing to lower-performing schools and allowing or requiring affluent parents to make up the deficit.