School Choice
In the News E-Mail
CER
CER and Education Reform In The News
POST WRONG ON SCHOOL CHOICE: WHERE VOTERS HAVE IT, THEY LIKE IT
Letter To The Editor by Jeanne Allen
The Palm Beach Post, November 19, 2000
The Nov. 13 editorial "The voucher vote: No," declaring school choice dead because of referenda defeats in Michigan and California, is flawed in one important aspect: The electoral evidence where school choice exists is that once voters try it, they like it.
In Florida, the candidate for state education superintendent supporting the A+ Plan's Opportunity Scholarships so vigorously opposed by the National Education Association won with 54 percent of the vote. In Escambia County, where the children in two failing schools have been offered opportunity scholarships to the public or private school of their choice, the newly elected county school superintendent is an avowed supporter of the A+ Plan. In the Panhandle, where the A+ Plan has had the greatest impact, the state representative who led the opposition to the plan was resoundingly defeated.
And, of course, in Milwaukee, where pro-voucher Democratic Mayor John Norquist has had a scholarship program in place for years, he and his team -- including the city's pro-choice school board -- are regularly elected and reelected, despite the teacher union's six-figure effort to defeat them. This is what defenders of the status quo fear most: that when people experience the reality of school choice, they see through the scare tactics of those who care more about their political power than about children's education.
There is a simple way to make the advocates of reform pack up and go home: Improve the education of the children being underserved by the status quo. But without the incentives offered by such scholarships, the education Establishment declines to act. Until it does, the fight goes on.
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Jeanne Allen is president of The Center for Education Reform [CER], a national, independent, non-profit advocacy organization providing support and guidance to individuals, community and civic groups, policymakers and others who are working to bring fundamental reforms to their schools. For more information, please call (202) 822-9000.
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Additional articles on School Choice and Election 2000:
SCHOOL CHOICE IS HERE TO STAY; PUBLIC TRIES
IT, LIKES IT, Statement by Jeanne Allen, President of the Center for
Education Reform, Regarding Comments Made by NEA President Bob Chase on the
Future of School Choice, November 15, 2000
CER ELECTION RESULTS
ANALYSIS, Updated November 14, 2000.