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These are some final thoughts from Clint Bolick, who is stepping down as president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice.  We’ll post responses to his remarks later this week.  -ed.

As I pack my office in anticipation of stepping down as Alliance for School Choice president and the Alliance’s move to Washington, DC, I’m filled with mixed feelings: looking back with intense pride over the first three years of the Alliance; optimism about Charles Hokanson, my successor as Alliance president; and excitement about the future of the school choice movement.  But, of course, what self-respecting lawyer would leave a job without a closing argument?  So here goes.

The progress made by the school choice movement over the past three years is nothing short of remarkable.  Twenty new or expanded programs.  Last year, seven of 11 new or expanded programs were in states with Democratic governors, and the other in a state with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature.  This year, the nation’s first universal voucher program in Utah, with sliding-scale value based on income.  All very positive developments.  In all, the number of kids in targeted school choice programs has grown over the past three years from 92,000 to over 134,000; the amount of targeted publicly funded school choice has grown from $270 million to $571 million.  What amazes me is the paucity of media coverage of school choice.  If the unions put out a negative study, it is page-one news in the New York Times; but when the nation’s first universal voucher program is adopted, it registers barely a blip.  I can’t understand why–it’s not like there’s a plethora of good news about K-12 education.  But one lesson is that the school choice movement needs to learn a lot more about marketing.

At the same time, progress is not nearly fast enough.  I am still agnostic about the No Child Left Behind Act, but at least it gives us a snapshot of the dire conditions in many public schools: four million children are trapped in chronically failing schools–that is, schools that have failed the states’ standards for at least six consecutive years.  Given the dearth of available options in better-performing public schools–which NCLB also has demonstrated–what possible argument could be made to keep kids in those educational cesspools?

As Jay Greene has pointed out, despite assertions that academic findings vary on school choice, the following three points are uncontestable:  (1) all gold standard studies–that is, studies that compared randomly selected kids who applied for school choice programs with those who applied but didn’t get in–show academic gains for choice students; (2) all studies examining the effects of meaningful school choice competition on public schools show academic gains; and (3) all studies examining economic and racial diversity find that choice schools are better integrated.  The case for private school choice, particularly for disadvantaged children, is compelling.  Not only does it provide an educational life preserver, but it is the tide that lifts all boats.  But we do need much more research, and I’m excited about the highly credible, comprehensive longitudinal study now in progress in Milwaukee.  I would like to see much more research based on value-added measures–that is one area on which school choice supporters and opponents might cohere, because the true measure of a school’s success is not absolute test scores but real progress for all students.  We also don’t want to penalize schools that take a risk on kids who start several grade levels behind.  Yet overall, the school choice track record is extremely positive, as one would suspect when an ossified and bureaucratic monopoly is challenged by competition.  As Milton Friedman might have said, the rules of economics are not suspended at the schoolhouse doors.

But as "Star Wars" teaches, the Empire always strikes back, whether through litigation, referenda, or plain old-fashioned lies.  Our resources continue to pale with those of the education establishment, but we’re getting smarter and winning more often.  The Alliance has played a vital role by effectively identifying legislative opportunities and deploying financial and technical resources to local allies.  We are fighting for small, targeted programs that provide the foundation for bigger ones.  We now have enough resources to go toe-to-toe with the establishment in selected arenas and come out winners.  In every case we are outspent, but the establishment is so accustomed to operating in a monopoly environment that it doesn’t always know how to spend money effectively or efficiently.

I can understand the unions’ tenacious opposition to school choice.  Their entire purpose is to represent their members’ economic interests.  As the American Federation of Teachers’ Albert Shanker once famously said, when kids become union members, then he’d represent the interests of kids.  What troubles me is opposition from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union.  I understand their opposition to tax deductions or vouchers used in religious schools, even if their views are not grounded in a sensible reading of the Constitution, which forbids "establishment of religion," and does not require hostility toward religion. But it bugs me to see a civil liberties group with a distinguished pedigree turn its arguments over to union mercenaries who do not care about civil liberties; to cloak itself in the Blaine amendments in state constitutions, which trace to a bigoted anti-Catholic past; and especially to invoke "uniformity clauses" in state constitutions and to argue that public education funds can only be spent in schools that adhere to official orthodoxy.  Indeed, the ACLU’s slogan, sadly, needs to be changed to "We Stand for Uniformity."

Still, the tide is turning.  The school choice movement is making the issue genuinely bipartisan.  Democratic support has been crucial since the beginning; Wisconsin State Rep. Polly Williams is the godmother of the modern movement.  But recently the pace is picking up.  We wouldn’t have a DC school choice program without Mayor Anthony Williams or Sen. Dianne Feinstein.  Last year, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano became the first Democrat to sign voucher bills into law; this year, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell became the first to propose an expansion of an existing school choice program.  The number of Democrats willing to speak out in favor of school choice is small but growing.  Likewise, distinguished and courageous civil rights advocates like William Taylor of the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights are cautiously embracing private school choice.

Indeed, were it not for its dependency on unions, school choice should be a Democratic issue.  Walter Dellinger, solicitor general in the Clinton Administration, quips that school choice is a wealth redistribution program that Republicans can support.  But at the national level, the epiphany is slow in coming.  Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Al Gore all earn scarlet H’s for hypocrisy by moralizing against school choice while sending their own kids to private schools.  School choice supporters are cautiously looking to Barack Obama and Bill Richardson as Democratic presidential candidates who might be willing to challenge the national party’s conventional "wisdom" opposing school choice.

Were Republicans ever seriously to get a clue about school choice, they could trigger a crisis among Democrats by forcing them to choose between two core constituencies: special interest groups who abhor school choice, and blacks and Hispanics who desperately need it.  But so far, few Republicans have recognized the potential electoral saliency of school choice.  Most school choice philanthropists seem to be migrating toward supporting Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid.  Though Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney also support school choice–and others such as Tommy Thompson, Sam Brownback, and Newt Gingrich are long-time stalwarts–Giuliani articulates the systemic need for school choice from the perspective of an urban mayor who failed utterly to reform public schools through more conventional reform efforts.  School choice ought to be the centerpiece of a Republican urban agenda.

As the Bush Administration’s days begin to wane, its education legacy rests upon its willingness to enforce NCLB, and particularly its public school transfer options.  Secretary Spellings soon will hav

e the case of Compton, California, a school district of legendarily abysmal quality that has brazenly thumbed its nose at the NCLB transfer requirements.  Cases from Los Angeles and Birmingham will follow.  So far, Spellings has been all waiver and no stick.  A law that proclaims that no child will be left behind must be judged on whether its core promise is kept.  In the process, the administration can demonstrate the compelling need to add private school options to NCLB, which it professes to want.  On the one hand, the Bush Administration has been the most pro-school choice in history.  On the other, when push comes to shove–such as with the early capitulation on private school options in the first NCLB battle–rhetoric has exceeded action.  Spellings can cement Bush’s education legacy with the stroke of a pen.  Will she rise to the occasion?

Regardless, the momentum is solidly behind school choice.  Every year, we make gains; so far, we have successfully resisted counterattacks.  Despite furious assaults by the unions and their allies, not a single child in the continental United States has been forced to leave a choice program.  That is a record I hope will endure, even as the pace for school choice needs to hasten.  And I look forward to continuing to play a role in support–as an activist for private school choice and charter schools and as a litigator.

On a personal note, I was thrilled by the People for the American Way’s recent assertions that the latest proof that the voucher movement is failing is that I’m leaving the school choice movement to become a romance novelist–not because any of it is true, but because every time they say it, the sales rankings on amazon.com for my recently published first novel, Nicki’s Girl (which is emphatically not a romance novel!), go up.  Thanks, buddies!  Trust me, if I had to rely on novel writing, my family would starve.

Though my three years at the Alliance have been extremely rewarding, the burden of constant travel weighs heavily on a family with young children.  (By the way, so far all of my kids have attended only public schools from kindergarten through college–unlike nearly everyone I’ve ever debated about school choice.)  And the lure of my first profession, constitutional litigation, has been omnipresent.  So I am leaving but will not be far away: I’ll be launching the Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, and will serve of-counsel to the Rose Law Group (which is different from the more-famous Rose Law Firm) in Scottsdale, which will allow me to continue working on national issues.  For starters, charter school funding equity and new voucher remedy lawsuits are in my sights.

My time at the Alliance has been enormously exciting, challenging, occasionally nerve-wracking, but ultimately gratifying.  The Alliance’s board and staff are incredible.  I’ve had the chance to work alongside fantastic allies at the national and local levels, including three school choice titans who we have lost over the past three years:  John Walton, Milton Friedman, and Michael Joyce.  But the greatest reward is the kids–tens of thousands of kids who the system has written off.  Having the chance to see how well they do in schools that nurture them and expect them to succeed–to see the look of pride and determination on their precious faces–is sublime.  What an honor to be a part of this movement.  There’s plenty of room and urgent need for people of passion and good will to join us.

Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about how important it is to win not only people’s minds but their hearts.  That is what the school choice movement needs to do to prevail over the forces of reaction and inertia.  Americans care more deeply about their children than anything else, which is reflected in our nation’s doctrinal commitment to equal opportunity.  That is the common denominator upon which the school choice movement will triumph.