What's the beef over school vouchers?

The NEA needs to own up to the facts

By Dick Tunison

Paradoxes have tended to intrigue me. For example: How can someone be in favor of a woman’s right to choose and at the same time oppose the death penalty? How can our tax laws provide earned income tax credits to people who didn’t pay any taxes in the first place? Why is it that diversiphiles like to create stand-alone groups in our society like Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans that are really conglomerations with little or no true bonds between them? Why is it that teachers unions tell us their principal concern is the good of the children, yet they fight tooth and toenail against school vouchers that would enable kids to get a better education?

Week before last, The Wall Street Journal noted that the Florida Supreme Court has junked a six-year-old voucher program in that state as a result of a union-led lawsuit. Despite the fact that virtually all study data show that not only are voucher programs attractive to many lower income families with school children, but test results reveal the success of practically every school choice programs around the country including the one in Florida.

Now it seems a school choice program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is being attacked by that state’s governor who wants to lower the cap on the number of kids who can participate. Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program has been in effect since 1990. It was enacted with strong bipartisan support and provides school vouchers to students from families at or below 175% of the “poverty line.” The program has grown consistently since 1990 and last year encompassed 127 schools and more than 14,000 kids. But teacher union financed Governor Jim Doyle has vetoed three attempts on the part of the state legislature to expand the program and let more students participate.

One can fairly ask about the results of the voucher program in Milwaukee. Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute conducted a study of 2004 data indicating that students taking advantage of vouchers and attending private schools graduated at a 64% rate as opposed to a 36% rate among public school students. An interesting side effect has been noted by Harvard’s Caroline Hoxby who found the voucher program has raised the standards of Milwaukee’s public schools as a result of competition.

It seems that the arguments used by those opposed to school vouchers boil down to just a few. The primary argument is that private school vouchers take money out of the public school’s budgets in order to pay the freight for those kids who opt out in favor of an alternative education. To some people, this translates into cutting what can be spent for the public school classroom. But what is not recognized is that the non-teaching bureaucracy has mushroomed beyond belief. That’s where the real money is being spent. The U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics has found that between 1960 and 1984 the bureaucracy grew by 500% while the number of teachers and principals grew by a mere 57%. So, the deep pockets are not among classroom teachers and the tools of the trade, but in the offices in the “downtown” headquarters.

Another argument is that a $3,000 or $4,000 voucher really won’t help poor families get their children into private schools, because they are far too expensive. That’s certainly true if one chooses Exeter Academy, Andover, Sidwell Friends or one of the other exclusive schools in major metropolitan areas. But it’s not necessarily the case in most parts of the country where the average private school tuition is about half of what the taxpayers dole out for each child in the public education system. Yes, private schools supplement what the parents pay for tuition with funds raised from other sources, but substantial funds flow into public education from similar sources also.

Then, of course, there is the argument that almost all private schools are somehow church related. To some people this is a frightening thought. Our kids being brainwashed by the Catholics or the Baptists, horrors! Lest we forget, in the early days of this country our colleges were founded and underwritten by various religious groups. Do schools like Harvard, William and Mary, Yale and Princeton ring a bell? How about the University of Southern California, Redlands University, Wheaton, Vanderbilt and Texas Christian, they all started with the support of religious institutions. Yes, they did produce some clergymen along the way, but it would be hard to show that they created religious fanatics of very many of their students. This argument is a red herring.

The principal adversaries of school vouchers are among the leaders of the teacher’s unions across the country. Now, I want to make myself perfectly clear. I am differentiating between union leadership and the so-called rank and file. The primary concern of union leaders is power. An example can be seen in union participation in the Democratic National Conventions where some twenty percent of the delegates are union representatives. If there is any possibility that someone else may get a bite out of the education apple, the union’s members are brought into the fight rather than risk losing ground, even though what is lost may be in the best interest of the kids. For NEA leaders to say their first priority is the children of America is like the United Auto Workers president saying his union’s first priority is making Ford Explorers that won’t roll over. Union management is all about power.

Until the people of this country begin to understand that the voucher system is not here to kill public education, but to get it off the dime, we haven’t even started to help our children learn their A,B,Cs. If vouchers create competition for our schools – good. But we should also be watching the statistics. Proof is in the success of an alternative that the teachers' unions are acutely afraid of.

It’s time to stir the pot a little harder.