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Words of Wisdom from Dick Morris (Clint Bolick)

School choice activists gathered recently at a conference hosted by the Gleason Foundation were treated to words of wisdom from an unlikely source: Bill Clinton’s political guru, Dick Morris.

Morris had lots of observations about the school choice movement, its prospects, and potential winning strategies.  Some struck me as on-target; others, wide of the mark.

But one thing he said seemed to me particularly sage: that the No Child Left Behind Act was the biggest gift the school choice movement has ever received.

It sure didn’t seem that way when it was enacted.  At the slightest hint of opposition from Sen. Ted Kennedy, President George W. Bush dropped private school options from the bill faster than my beloved San Francisco 49ers fell out of contention in the NFC West last year.  From that point, NCLB seemed irrelevant to the school choice movement, with a golden opportunity to create private school options fumbled away.

As a policy matter, NCLB seemed like another massive unfunded federal mandate.  While not all of their complaints have merit, local public school bureaucrats surely are right when they complain that the cost of federal mandates outweigh the funds that accompany them.  I’m still agnostic about whether the law’s costs, especially in terms of the expansion of the federal role in education, outweigh the benefits.

But now it’s starting to look like there was something more to it, whether intended or not—one might almost call it an act of “strategery.”  First of all, tens of thousands of kids in failing schools are receiving tutoring.  Too many children are receiving it from the same people who are failing to successfully educate them during the day, but many others are receiving it from private providers who boast a proven track record of success.  Many kids who are in failing schools most of the time now are in effective educational environments for a few hours a week, at least.

But more important than that, for the first time since the milestone "A Nation at Risk" report over two decades ago, Americans finally are gaining a glimpse of just how miserably and intractably bad a vast number of our public schools are.  That is because NCLB requires states to rank their schools.  It’s true that the states get to choose the standards, many of which are absurdly low; and that many states are playing games by excluding many minority and special-needs students.

That makes it all the more revelational that roughly one-quarter of all American public school students are in schools that their own states have deemed to be failing.  Even more than that, nearly two thousand schools across the nation are chronically failing—that is, they have been failing for at least six years.  That spells crisis, with a capital “C.”

But the law doesn’t stop there—in addition to limited supplemental services, the law entitles every child in a failing school to transfer to a better-performing public school within the district.  Trouble is, there’s not a single large urban school district in the country that can pull that off, because there are far more children eligible to transfer than there are seats available in better-performing schools.

What that means is that NCLB is making more clear than ever before that public schools alone cannot solve the crisis of inner-city public education.  No Child Left Behind is a hollow promise without genuine school choice—including inter-district transfers, charter schools, and yes, private schools.

Somewhere, somehow, federal lawmakers figured that out in the context of disabled children.  Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, if a school district fails to provide an “adequate” education to a disabled child, it must freight private school tuition.  School districts all across the country do just that. 

But under NCLB, a child in a failing school who lacks a meaningful public school option is entitled to…a tutor, maybe.  Not only that, but there is no private cause of action to enforce any of the “rights” under the law.  Instead of No Child Left Behind, there are millions left behind.  Nationwide, only one percent of children in failing public schools have received transfers.  In Los Angeles and Compton, the transfer rates are .02 percent and zero, respectively.

But wait—there is a hammer, and it is held by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who can cut off federal Title I funds to schools that fail to comply with transfer provisions.  When Spellings assumed her position, it appeared that her main role under NCLB would be handing out waivers.  But lately she has taken a decidedly different posture, perhaps recognizing that NCLB could be the President’s best chance for a positive and enduring legacy.

Responding to legal actions filed by the Alliance for School Choice and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education, Spellings recently fired off a letter to California officials seeking their investigation of the complaints and adding her own concerns about problems with supplemental services in Oakland and Stockton.  Spellings noted that although compliance with NCLB is primarily a local concern, she alluded to her own responsibility to enforce the law and her power to withhold funds for noncompliance.  She surely will have other opportunities to get tough as similar actions are filed in other large urban school districts.

The harsh reality is that large urban school districts can’t comply.  There simply aren’t enough seats in better-performing public schools.  So something has to give: either the Administration’s will, NCLB’s exclusion of meaningful options—or the dreams and opportunities of millions of American schoolchildren, mostly minority and low-income, who are consigned to failing schools.

The Bush Administration has proposed adding private options for some children in chronically failing schools.  It’s a start.  But surely the reactionary forces supporting the status quo will resist until enough members of Congress on both sides of the aisle resolve to do something to rescue those kids.  The moral case is clear and compelling: no child should be forced to stay in a failing public school.

NCLB is far from perfect.  But Dick Morris is right:  with its emphases on transparency and accountability, at least NCLB is providing a long-overdue wake-up call, making the case for school choice more compelling than ever.

Clint Bolick is President and General Counsel at the Alliance for School Choice.