In The News: Education Vouchers -- A Rose By Another Name?

CER and Education Reform In The News

Excerpts from SCHOOL VOUCHERS: A ROSE BY OTHER NAME?
By Jodi Wilgoren
New York Times, December 20, 2000

Everybody is talking about not talking about vouchers.

"The most effective way to frame it is: Who should be in charge of the education of the child?" said Theodore J. Forstmann, the billionaire who is bankrolling a national advertising campaign to highlight what he sees as the evils of the public school monopoly.

"I think maybe the word is part of the problem," Senator Trent Lott, the majority leader, said, discussing vouchers on Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." "Maybe the word should be 'scholarship.' "

At a meeting of voucher advocates in New York City last week, Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform in Washington, said: "There are fewer and fewer people who think only school vouchers are the key. There are more and more people talking about choices."

After last month's referendum defeats in Michigan and California and last week's court ruling that a Cleveland voucher program was unconstitutional, the movement to bring market forces to the nation's schools is trying to reposition itself.

The strategy now is to avoid a loaded term many people do not understand - vouchers involve using public money for private school tuition - and stage a broader philosophical attack on the way public education has been run for a century.

Like abortion-rights advocates of the 1980's, the pro-voucher forces want to frame their cause as one of choice.

They are counting on the election of George W. Bush - who shies away from the word "voucher" but suggests giving families in failing schools $1,500 in federal money to use for any education expense - to elevate the issue to the national stage.

As they seek grass-roots support, advocates plan to back away from vouchers, which are anathema to the powerful teachers' unions and many parents who support their local schools. Even those who see universal vouchers as the long-term goal plan to focus, for now, mainly on expanding charter schools - which are publicly financed but free of most regulation - and tax credits, through which tuition or even gifts to scholarship funds could be donated.

Using these more palatable programs as a beachhead, the hope is that enthusiasm over bringing competition and entrepreneurship to education will eventually create a ground swell for vouchers.

"Part of the discussion today has to be a clarification about what is school choice," Howard Fuller, the former Milwaukee school superintendent who is the father of the nation's oldest and largest voucher program, told a group of supporters earlier this month. "I think that vouchers are the linchpin to the broader school choice movement, but vouchers are not the only option."

Fewer than 15,000 children use publicly financed vouchers to attend private schools, most of them in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Florida. An additional 50,000 children have scholarships financed by philanthropists like Mr. Forstmann. Most voucher proposals suggest that part of the money states spend on education be given directly to parents, who could then choose whether to enroll their children in public or private schools.

Public opinion polls have registered a growing interest in vouchers in recent years - one survey found 53 percent in favor, with even stronger support among African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and poor people - but that has yet to translate into political success.

On top of the failed ballot initiatives in California and Michigan this fall, 28 states defeated or delayed voucher-related legislation this year. In court, the Cleveland case was the second in two years in which federal appellate judges rejected the use of tax money for parochial school tuition....

Part of the problem with the voucher movement is that it is ill defined. It lacks clear leadership and, at times, there is little communication among people working for similar goals. Mr. Draper was roundly denounced by many who share his ideology for pursuing a broadly framed initiative experts deemed doomed to fail. Mr. Forstmann proudly announces he avoids school-choice conferences.

In addition, the alliance between wealthy white Republicans who finance the movement, and the poor minority parents who are its potential foot soldiers, can be awkward. And, unlike a parallel effort that brought high-stakes testing to schools across America, few high- profile elected officials have ever been involved.

"Legislators don't lead, they follow," said Gov. Gary E. Johnson of New Mexico, who has tried - and vows to try again - to get vouchers for every child in his state.

"Why can't we have an entrepreneurial explosion in this country when it comes to educational services?" Mr. Johnson, a Republican, asked, avoiding the v-word. "What we've got here is a monopoly."

As they look to the future, advocates believe the voucher wars must continue to be fought on three fronts: legal, political and educational.

With last week's ruling, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, many believe the issue may soon land at the Supreme Court, where school choice advocates expect a friendly hearing, particularly if Mr. Bush has a chance to appoint any justices.

Politically, vouchers have been rejected over and over in Congress and in state capitals, but with a Republican president and Republican-controlled Congress, there may be revived hope for at least a pilot voucher program in Washington.

Such a project could help on the educational front as well. Studies on the effect of vouchers on student performance - and their impact on the local public schools - have thus far produced mixed results, and researchers are eager for a full-scale program to follow in-depth.

"This is a very young movement," said Mr. Fuller, who has been pushing school choice since 1989. "I see this as a long-term fight."

###