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Toe-Hold Strategies (Clint Bolick)

When the Arizona legislature concludes its 2006 session in a few days, it will set a record for school-choice legislation by enacting four new or expanded programs allowing disadvantaged children to attend private schools. Even more remarkable: The programs were enacted in a state with a Democratic governor.

Yet Arizona is not an aberration. Already in 2006, a new Iowa corporate scholarship tax credit bill was signed into law by Gov. Tom Vilsack; and in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle signed a bill increasing the Milwaukee voucher program by 50%. Gov. Ed Rendell may expand Pennsylvania’s corporate scholarship tax credit program, as he did last year. Messrs. Vilsack, Doyle and Rendell are all Democrats.

And last year, hell froze over: Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed the inclusion of private schools in a rescue effort for over 300,000 children displaced from their schools by Hurricane Katrina. As a result, tens of thousands of kids are attending private schools using federal funds, amounting to the largest (albeit temporary) voucher program ever enacted. Before that, a voucher program for the District of Columbia was established with support from Democratic Mayor Anthony Williams and Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Joseph Lieberman.

What gives?

The Democrats are not exactly untethering themselves from the education establishment. While some (like Messrs. Williams and Lieberman) are converts to the idea of school choice, others (like Messrs. Kennedy, Vilsack, Doyle and Rendell) remain generally opposed.

Still, school choice has experienced unprecedented legislative success over the past two years for a few underlying reasons. First and foremost, the school choice movement is acting smarter. Instead of taking the unions and their massive resources head-on, advocates are adopting toe-hold strategies, pursuing small programs addressing specific problems that are difficult for politicians to oppose. The strategy makes sense from a moral perspective, for it focuses assistance on the neediest schoolchildren.

It also works politically, because choice begets choice: Once the Rubicon is crossed and legislators vote to adopt a school choice program–no matter how small or targeted–it becomes easier to support a new one, or expand the old one, the next time around. Hence, of the seven new school choice programs enacted last year, six were in states that already had school choice. The seventh was a program for disadvantaged children in Utah, which was expanded this year. At the same time, pro-school choice legislators are bargaining hard, exchanging increases in public school funding for private school choice.

Arizona offers a classic example. The state already has so much school choice–open public school enrollment, more charter schools per capita than any other state, individual scholarship tax credits–that it’s more or less impossible for opponents to demonize it. So accepted and popular is the idea that when Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano proposed a full-day kindergarten public school program last year, she called it school choice because, after all, families could choose whether to enroll their children.

This year, the Republican legislature enacted a $5 million corporate tax credit to provide low-income children with scholarships to attend private schools. Ms. Napolitano vetoed it twice before allowing it to become law without her signature.

In a budget compromise between the governor and legislature reached last week, the corporate scholarship tax credit will be doubled this year, and increased by 20% each subsequent year, until it grows to nearly $21 million and 7,000 students by 2010. Additionally, Ms. Napolitano agreed to a voucher program for children with disabilities (similar to programs in Florida and Utah) and a first-of-its-kind voucher program for disadvantaged children in foster care.

In return, Republicans agreed to Ms. Napolitano’s statewide full-day kindergarten program and salary increases for public school teachers. Both sides will now see which reforms work better: Pouring more money into public schools, or greater choice and competition. Fortunately, both parties are learning that the two approaches are not mutually exclusive.

Another factor inducing a more supportive or tolerant attitude toward school choice among Democrats is that they are running out of viable alternatives. The U.S. Department of Education reported recently that three million children are attending chronically failing schools–that is, schools that have failed to satisfy minimal state standards for at least six consecutive years.

Under the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, children in schools failing to make adequate progress are entitled to transfer to better-performing public schools within the district. Trouble is, the number of children eligible to transfer vastly exceeds the number of seats available in the better public schools. In Los Angeles, for example, only two of every 1,000 children in failing schools have transferred.

For Democrats who truly believe in social justice, that presents a terrible dilemma: Either forcing children to remain in schools where they have little prospect for a bright future, or enlisting private schools in a rescue mission. Democrats are increasingly unwilling to forsake the neediest children.

For children in chronically failing schools, the day of reckoning is fast approaching: Legislation to add private school options to NCLB will be introduced next month. Democrats who supported private school relief for Katrina children to alleviate a disaster will be forced to confront the reality that New Orleans schools were in crisis long before the hurricane appeared–and so are millions of other children in inner cities across the nation.

Arizona is evidence of the possible. Although she could have allowed them to become law without her signature, as she did with the corporate scholarship tax credits, Gov. Napolitano yesterday became the first Democrat to sign new voucher programs into law. For children with disabilities or in foster care, how the bill became law is of little moment; but by affixing her imprimatur, Ms. Napolitano conveyed powerful symbolic evidence that the future for school choice is bright.

Clint Bolick is president of the Alliance for School Choice.  This article previously appeared in Opinion Journal.