Vouchers will Force Education Reform

Spectators on both sides of the field concur that the Cleveland voucher case is the Super Bowl of education reform. As the Supreme Court justices deliberate arguments that were presented last month, there is solace in knowing that, should precedent and reason prevail, so will the proponents of vouchers. Their case is by far the more convincing.

Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association (NEA), waded into the fray and cast the debate in terms predictably misleading and ominous: "Will we, as a society, choose to enhance the quality of public schools, or will we choose to divert resources to a few private school students?" Chase and the education establishment oppose vouchers, preferring to stay the present course - one littered with failed innovative theories, halfhearted reforms, and millions illiterate high school graduates. Perhaps Chase should pose his question to the public school teachers of Milwaukee; nearly half of them send their own children to private institutions.

Are "diverted resources" to blame for the intellectual squalor that chokes the life from our public schools? For decades, the establishment has demanded and received astronomical increases in funding. On a per-student basis, spending has soared from $375 in 1960 to $816 in 1970; from $6,146 in 1990 to $7000 in 2000. This, they assured us, was a surefire way to "enhance the quality of the public schools." Yet, contrary to the pleas of teary-eyed public school "facilitators" (formerly known as teachers), study after study shows no correlation between expenditures and results. The taxpayers have been duped.

Given the abhorrent state of public education and the establishment's entrenched resistance to change, why not take some of that money and give it to people like Roberta Kitchen? Cleveland's voucher program has allowed her 11-year-old daughter to escape the stranglehold of one of the nation's most pathetic school systems, which boasts a graduation rate of 28 percent.

Because the voucher opponents' church and state arguments have been routed elsewhere (most notably in the pages of American history), we need no pummel a dead horse. One observation will suffice: As Gary Rosen noted in a devastating article for Commentary magazine, a string of Supreme Court decisions in the 80s and 90s established that it is acceptable for public funds to wind up in religious schools as long as they do so "indirectly, through the private decisions of individuals." Since Cleveland's program allows parents to decide what school their children will attend, there is no conflict with established jurisprudence. That horse is deceased.

Another red herring is the contention espoused by the NEA, the National School Boards Association and others that vouchers will drain money from the public school. This is demonstrably false. Approximately 92 percent of school funds are derived from the state and local level. When Johnny leaves the public system to attend a private school, the system obviously has one less student to fund. Consequently, it loses Johnny's share of state money, but keeps his share of local funds. In both Cleveland and Milwaukee (home of the nation's largest voucher program), each student's departure leaves in the hand of the public system a net gain of $3,000.

The establishment expends its energy stubbornly resisting change from without in order to divert its gaze from the rot within. Frenzied nationwide competition in the wake of a Supreme Court endorsement of the Cleveland program would compel teachers' unions, school boards, Democrats and other defenders of incompetence to confront and overhaul the perversions of the modern system.

For instance, high school students whose SAT scores and GPAs are among the lowest are the most likely to major in education, and their predecessors comprise the majority of today's educators. In his meticulous demolition of public schools, The Conspiracy of Ignorance, author Martin Gross suggests that undergraduate schools of education - "the intellectual slums" of the university - should be closed and teachers required to major in academic subjects: "The American degree in education represents training in a narrow, intellectually deficient, and philosophically weak discipline." In short, the academic bottom of the barrel, the most ill equipped college graduates, are charged with educating our kids. The urge to yank one's children out of such a system is perfectly reasonable.

Yet, as demonstrated by the establishment, arrogance is often inversely proportionate to ignorance. The NEA and its allies are determined to defeat vouchers, an option overwhelmingly endorsed by American blacks. Black kids, after all, endure a disproportionate share of public education buffoonery. Predictably enough, in Cleveland, 70 percent of voucher recipients are black. Consequently, we might assume that the self-annointed guardians of civil rights, such as the Congressional Black Caucus, support vouchers. But we would be wrong. The Caucus is comprised of Democrats, and as we learned from the Wall Street Journal in August, the NEA owns Democrats. Therefore, the Caucus opposes vouchers. Never mind the fate of black kids condemned to miserable schools.

If the foremost concern of the public school establishment is the education of children, then what the NEA and its cohorts must "facilitate" is the implementation of voucher programs. True reform and meaningful education will flourish not as a consequence of increased funding, but as a consequence of choice and competition.

Charles Davenport, Jr., is an op-ed columnist at the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record and a policy analyst for the William Wilberforce Society. His e-mail address if daisha99@msn.com. Contact the WWS at 336-856-1818