Interesting oped piece on vouchers from today's Wall Street Journal:
COMMENTARY
The Liberal Voucher Opportunity
By MATTHEW MILLER
Liberals upset by the Supreme Court's ruling that vouchers are constitutional vow to take the fight against choice to the streets and state capitols. But the truth is this "setback" creates an opportunity for the left to recast the voucher debate in ways that bring more money to poor schools. The question is whether the teachers unions have the imagination at this crossroads to allow new ideas for the children they claim to champion -- as well as for the Democratic presidential aspirants whose agendas they control.
Since most liberal brains are not wired to process this notion -- that support for bigger voucher trials is perfectly consistent with other serious efforts to improve urban public schools -- let me walk through the logic.
Calcified Debate
For years the voucher debate has been calcified. The right cries, "These poor kids need the same choice well-off families have," while offering voucher plans that typically offer a fraction of the city's per pupil spending to an even tinier fraction of the kids in need. The left screams, "This will drain resources from already underfunded poor schools -- and besides, its unconstitutional."
Last week a giant leg of that argument fell away, creating one of those rare moments of flux when new ideas can get traction. So when it comes to the "draining cash" part of the objection, its time we recognized the obvious: It's easy to design voucher plans that increase spending on schools. Shouldn't liberals be open to that?
Here's how we might start. Take three or four big cities where everyone agrees the public schools aren't working (leave out dens of mismanagement like Newark or Washington, D.C., where spending is high but ineffective). In these cities -- many of which spend far less than nearby affluent suburbs -- raise per pupil spending by 20% or 30%, giving the left the resources it rightly says these kids need. But implement this increase only via a voucher system that gives every poor kid -- not just a handful -- a choice. In a city that now spends $6,000 per pupil, for example, every poor child would get, say, a $7,500 voucher.
Depending on the cities, the federal government could fund this boost for $1 billion or so a year. The feds would guarantee to bankroll it for 10 or 15 years, to give entrepreneurs (both nonprofit and for-profit) the incentive to make investments in new schools, and thus get a true test of competition's impact. We'd also toss in sensible regulations, such as one requiring that any school that wants to take the voucher has to reserve a certain portion of seats (15%?) for which the voucher would suffice as full tuition (so it's not simply a way for schools to jack up prices, or shun poorer kids).
When I first proposed this deal a few years ago in the Atlantic Monthly, it was agreed to by Lamar Alexander, the former education secretary, and Clint Bolick, the litigator involved in many choice cases. Milton Friedman, while preferring smaller vouchers, agreed to the hike for public school kids, because he reckons the departure of students with smaller vouchers would bring that de facto increase anyway. Jack Coons, the liberal grandfather of the school finance equity movement, signed on. William Bennett says today he'd do it in a second.
NAACP chief Kweisi Mfume told me in 1999 he would, too -- his objection to most voucher schemes, he said, was that they left out 99% of his constituents and didn't deal honestly with such costs as transportation. (Mr. Mfume's representative denied months later that he had taken this position, but I have my notes -- and know many other minority leaders would sign on, too).
Always, of course, it is the unions that say no. And that means Democratic presidential aspirants have to say no, too, or fight for the nomination opposed by an interest group that sends more delegates to the convention than California.
Unions say no because vouchers drain away money; this plan does not. They ask, where will the new schools come from? To which the proper answer is, if you think new schools won't be started, what's the problem? Children will take their 30% increase back to the school they're in now. Their argument that vouchers will divide Americans by class or race seems the most ostrich-like; today's public schools, in which only urban kids have no options, feature these demoralizing divides already.
Richly-funded voucher trials are not a panacea -- there is no such thing for urban schools -- but liberals should embrace them as pragmatic and just. Even the best standards-based reform efforts will take years to achieve results for most urban kids. How can Democrats be the party whose sole message for poor families with young children is, "Sit tight -- we've got a ten year reform plan!" Anyone who's spent time in city school bureaucracies knows too that top-down reforms aren't enough unless combined with a way to shake things up from the bottom.
There's a plus to this plan for the unions as well: A properly designed and evaluated set of large-scale voucher trials could take the issue off the table for a decade. All sides can agree to a truce while we learn what works and what doesn't.
If unions are not open to measures like these, they may soon be in for worse. Many big city superintendents who are active, lifelong Democrats privately agree the unions are the biggest obstacles to sound reform. These administrators fantasize about schemes to get big chunks of their system out from under debilitating restrictions and industrial union tactics.
Tipping Point
In short, we may not be far from a tipping point. At some point, a talented Democratic presidential candidate -- maybe in 2004, maybe later -- will decide that if the unions in effect require him or her to tell poor families they're trapped, while also resisting sensible reforms (like differential pay) that could lure top young graduates to our toughest schools, they're more trouble then they're worth. And when that candidate discovers that a message of common sense reform resonates powerfully with voters precisely because it is at odds with current union practice, well -- you can see where this goes.
If, instead, unions can be persuaded that the time has come to embrace a bargain like the one above, Democrats will be in the driver's seat. They retain, at least for now, the moral authority to speak on behalf of the disadvantaged, and Republicans will not be able to shrink from solutions they have long sought. The benefit for the nation is the chance to learn whether choice can make a real difference. The alternative is a Democratic Party that continues to favor its funders at the expense of its constituents.
Mr. Miller is a senior fellow at Occidental College and the host of "Left, Right & Center" on KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, Calif.
Updated July 2, 2002 |
