EDUCATION AND CHOICE:
TAKING IT ONE SCHOOL AT A TIME

Louise Oliver, CER Vice Chairman, Moderator
Nina Shokraii-Rees, Heritage Foundation
John Morris, Hope for Ohio’s Children
Peter Hutchison, Landmark Legal Foundation

         Five years ago, few would have dreamed that the issue of school choice in its widest interpretation — among public and private schools — would reach the U.S. Supreme Court. And yet, just days prior to the high court declining to review the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and thus allowing it to thrive, our audience gathered to gain a better understanding of how and why choice is even an option.

        Perhaps the greatest challenge for many school reformers is reaching critical mass in allowing parents the power to choose the best school available for their children. Nina Shokraii-Rees perhaps said it best when she argued that, "schools ought not be run by government for them to be considered public. Expanding educational opportunities is gaining popularity as a form of public school reform. All across the nation, people are embracing school choice, not because they think, all of a sudden, that private schools are embodying that common school ideal more so than public schools, but because they think both entities can envision and realize that dream at once."

        That dream is slowly being fulfilled in Ohio, where John Morris faced tough challenges in starting Cleveland’s two largest schools in that city’s scholarship program. With no concern for delaying choices for children, the opponents had filed suit early on, and the decision allowing the program to continue came just days before school was to open.

        "After the legal battles, we were ten days away from opening school. We had no books, we had no teachers, because we didn’t know, but we staffed the building, got the books, and started up school in 15 days…period.

        "The good thing we learned, because we didn’t have books [was that] we couldn’t have used them anyway. The kids were not ready to learn. They were the poorest of the poor, the ones we had been told time and time again could not be educated, because they had all these other problems. I’ve got to tell you, that’s the biggest lie ever perpetrated.

        "We move our children two grade levels a year, which is the accountability we put on teachers, because every child, if you look at a curriculum, can move two grades a year."

        Morris added, "…my dad used to tell me this, ‘I never knew how to play the piano, but I know when it’s being played wrong,’ and that’s what public education is doing now."

        As for those who sometimes forget what the effort to bring about better schools is all about, Landmark Legal’s Pete Hutchison made it clear:

        "What it is about is opportunity. We’re providing opportunity. We are providing access for people who have never had a real opportunity to learn… We owe a debt to those who are less fortunate than we have been."

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