- Those who have
looked objectively at educational choice without financial penalty know
several crucial things about it. They know it is a funding method,
not an alternate form of schooling. They know its enemy and opposite
is educational finance monopoly (EFM), not the public schools. They
know it has no downside educationally, for any decent educational approach
can be easily pursued under it. And they know that, if we were starting
from scratch, knowing what we know about the destructive characteristics
of monopoly, neither we nor anyone else would choose EFM. Rather,
we would place some or all of the allocation of education-dedicated tax
dollars in parents' hands. Parents, loving their child more than
any bureaucracy can, and deeply devoted to that child's betterment, will
look for schools which buttress family integrity and promise optimal educational
results. Able to choose freely because financial penalty has been
removed, they will automatically encourage excellence and efficiency among
educational alternatives. And the same process will prevent the growth
of monopolistic structures.
All those realities are implicit in educational choice without financial penalty. Its abstract beauty and logical power can tempt its supporters to underestimate the difficulty of achieving it, however, when we are not starting from scratch but from a long, accidental-but-stoutly-reinforced, history of EFM in place. EFM is tenacious in its self-defense, as is any deeply-entrenched monopoly, and this above all is what we must bear in mind as we ask, and try to answer, the obvious California questions.
Questions
If educational
choice without financial penalty is so great, and if Proposition 174 promised
to put California on that path, why did it get beaten so badly? If,
as polls showed, Proposition 174 was trailing closely and perhaps gaining
in mid-September, why by mid-October was it pitching downward dramatically,
heading for a sharp defeat two weeks later? Did the campaign expose
actual flaws in educational choice generally understood, and/or in Proposition
174's particular approaches? Or did the campaign essentially just
reaffirm what is in any case well known: if enough smoke is made,
and not dispelled, vision is clouded; if enough mud is thrown, and not
deflected by effective argument, some will stick? We will examine
the facts and try to draw appropriate inferences from them. Then
we can look for explanatory causes behind the facts. Finally, we
can point to several lessons offered by the California experience.
In this effort there is intended no criticism of anyone who labored for
Prop. 174. The author of these comments has the advantage of both
hindsight and remoteness, and has nothing but respect for those who are
working to achieve parental freedom in California.
Facts
Fact: The results
of the November 2nd referendum are as follows:
Yes — 29%; No — 71%.
Fact: There is only one legitimate inference to be drawn from the numbers here portrayed: on the second of November these numbers represented accurately the California electorate's attitude toward Proposition 174.
Fact: These numbers convey no negative attitude toward educational choice generally understood. Indeed, mid-campaign evidence from a variety of California polls, and exit poll data, as well, suggest that at the general level there is widespread support for the concept of educational choice, as is the case nationwide.
Fact: The campaign produced no new arguments, and no evidence and analysis destructive of the idea of educational choice. The related fact is that Prop. 174's opponents found effective ways to criticize it, and its supporters did not find effective ways to assure the electorate that any 174 flaws were remediable.
Fact: The effective critique simply meant that Prop. 174 was susceptible to certain attacks which might have been confronted and overcome in its design, or by having effective refutations at hand if no design changes were adopted. Examples of design susceptibilities: 174 did not contain, for example, certain budget easing methods well known to educational choice proponents; it did not contain overt devices aimed to give special consideration to special education and poverty-level students; it seemed to lessen public school ability; it appeared not to provide for quality control; and so on. Any such vulnerabilities displayed by 174 are not essential to choice, and could have been addressed easily before or after the fact, but they were highly susceptible to rhetorical attack.
A legitimate inference from the foregoing facts is that rhetorical firepower, not objective argument, shot down the 174 effort in California.
An
Early View of Causes
Polls portrayed
real but shallow momentum developing in favor of 174 in the period of August
to September, but that momentum was entirely lost in the period September
to October. The November 2nd results were, in fact, foregone conclusions
by the middle of October. Presumably, Gov. Wilson had noted such
changes when on October 5 he announced his opposition to 174 even while
endorsing the concept of educational choice. The apparent causes
include a radical discrepancy of dollars, eight or ten to one, available
to the different sides. The fast and dramatic sentiment shift, and
the impact of dollars in achieving it, are nowhere better illustrated than
in the comparison of mid-September and mid-October poll results.
A mid-September Los Angeles Times poll revealed that among registered voters, support for Proposition 174 was trailing by only 6% (39% favoring, 45% opposing). In a mid-October Field Institute survey of 708 registered voters, that gap had increased to 36% (24% favoring, 60% opposing). What occurred between mid-September and mid-October that led to such a dramatic erosion of support for the ballot initiative? An October 19 San Francisco Chronicle article about the Field Institute survey reported that "For the past month, the $10 million-plus opposition campaign, bankrolled mostly by the California Teachers Association, has blanketed the state with television advertising." According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the most frequently cited reason for opposing the initiative "was that Proposition 174 does not hold private schools to state standards on academics, safety and teacher training. That argument, which is stressed in the TV ads, was cited by 19 percent of people who oppose the voucher measure." The Chronicle article then adds, "In August, before the ads began, fewer than one-half of 1 percent used that argument." Clearly, the opposition's massive purchase of radio and TV air time succeeded in creating a great deal of worry and doubt among California voters — not about the desirability of parental choice in education, but about particular aspects of Proposition 174.
A mammoth difference in spending ability would be crucial in any political environment, but it seems especially important in a referendum where the target is the whole voting population and the chosen weapons are the most expensive: electronic media buys. To the extent this is true, it may also be true that EFM's typical spending advantage may be less meaningful in legislative arenas than in referenda. The limited legislative targets place some practical limits on spending, whereas the potential spending on mass media aimed at the general electorate is effectively limitless.
Related to that, it is relatively easy to defend the status quo — all that is needed is to obstruct action, an easier task than justifying action. And when we add to that the eight- or ten-to-one dollar ratio previously noted, an easy task is made even easier. If you have no real ammunition, the task then becomes to emit sufficient smoke and throw sufficient mud to obstruct the vision of the electorate, and that is precisely what happened. Those obstructions that were particularly effective, according to the polls, seem to have been the accent on the alleged budget-breaking cost of educational choice; the alleged damage to public schools because the cost was to be paid from dollars currently allocated to those public schools; and the "risk" factor, particularly as dramatized by certain extreme hypothetical examples that Prop. 174 opponents used. When such entirely hypothetical risks were put in contrast with the equally imaginary virtues of the so-called "common school," the picture, though untrue, was apparently damaging. Effectively missing in such discussion was the fact that under choice, parents, most committed to their child's interests, can be expected to protect those interests by rational and humane selection of schools. Missing, also, was recognition of the fact that private schools have been excellent teachers of good citizenship.
Proposition 174 supporters were not able to immunize the electorate from the obvious, even tired smears, despite the fact that all such allegations are easily refuted (See, e.g., Quentin L. Quade, "Smoke Screens: How to Clear the Air on School Choice," WI Wisconsin Interest, Vol. 1, No. 2, Summer/Fall, 1992, pp. 21-28.). And the most crucial fact — that the public schools are not the enemy of choice, but educational finance monopoly (EFM) is the enemy — was essentially lost in the mist. The decision of the Governor to place 174 on the November, 1993, ballot rather than the June, 1994, ballot probably hurt the effort to prepare the electorate and the natural choice constituencies as well. Perhaps the longer vista, if available, would have allowed the Prop. 174 supporters to organize, synthesize, and coordinate their efforts more rigorously. A unified structure, able to respond immediately and powerfully to the highly organized opposition, might have been able to offset some of the huge spending discrepancy.
Implications
and Lessons
It seems true
generally, and in California, that many advocates of educational choice
do not have a sufficient understanding of social inertia and the ability
of entrenched and very well-funded forces to manipulate that inertia.
If one is to do a political analysis of how to achieve educational choice,
it is prudent to begin with the phenomenon of social inertia which works
to support the status quo unless that status quo is widely perceived as
humanly destructive and options less so. EFM has not been clearly
enough portrayed as a root cause of today's educational malaise to create
a ground swell for choice and against monopoly. The symptoms of educational
distress are well known. Indeed, Prop. 174 opponents spent no time
defending today's education. But the causes have not been crystallized
in the public mentality. As a result, it is not productive to imagine
that the power and logic of educational choice will in some sense be self-winning.
Many choice advocates are too ready to say it is "inevitable," when all
they can accurately say is that it should happen. A sound understanding
of the phenomenon of inertia probably would have led to greater understanding
of the necessity for organized countervailing political action and countervailing
rhetorical action, as well.
Directly related to this is the need for assured funding in proportion to the task at hand. Knowing inertia, and knowing the resources — dollars and staff resources — available to the status quo defenders who will seek to manipulate it fairly well tells the tale: choice has virtues which help sell it, its advocates do not need a dollar for every opposition dollar, but they need at least comparable funds. And that, in turn, strongly suggests the need to develop broad-based and reliable funding sources, e.g., parents who would be primary beneficiaries of the new-found freedom choice would provide.
Choice proponents should be reminded by this affair that the only legitimate and rational time line one can use to refer to the process of achieving educational choice is "however long it takes." They simply cannot function effectively on a series of highs and lows which amount to artificial time lines. In other words, the Prop. 174 ballot on November 2, 1993, will most appropriately be seen as another way station along the path toward educational choice, not as an artificially climactic defeat.
Another implication
is in many respects the most dramatic. There are various "natural
constituencies" which will support educational choice because its objectives
are meritorious, if those constituencies can see it clearly, how it works,
what it aims to do, and the lack of downside risk. (See, e.g., the
Blum Center's 'All Roads Lead to Educational Choice Without Financial Penalty.')
From that perspective, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the California
experience was to see the dishevelment among the natural constituencies
of educational choice. Thus, e.g., we find fundamental splits among
the Catholic school people, other religious denominations, as well, and
the business community which has, if it truly understood the issue, so
much at stake in achieving educational choice. Sensitized and unified,
choice's natural constituencies have enough political mass to overcome
even EFM's entrenched defenders. Split internally and among themselves,
they simply negate themselves as a political factor.
Implicit in
such realities is the need to have a sustaining, unifying effort in support
of educational choice within any jurisdiction. Such an effort, in
turn, calls for a common structure, and a recognized leadership and voice
responsible for dealing with the rhetorical barrage which educational choice
inevitably provokes. (Prop. 174's supporters, even as they smooth
out any rough edges the campaign uncovered, must realize that the barrage
will be as loud against a 'new and improved' version. Opponents will
just use other angles.) This leadership can spearhead the design
of the specific implementing legislation or referendum with which
choice can begin. And it is around that design that the coalition
of all natural constituencies can be formed, if they are invited to participate
in its creation. Approached that way, the basic winning combination,
able to provide votes and dollars, can be constructed before the fact.
That, in turn, can enable the choice leadership to concentrate on dispelling
the smoke and deflecting the mud that will come with the campaign for the
specific choice instrument. If there are available shortcuts which
can achieve educational choice without the extended and arduous effort
described here, one would be a complete fool not to take them, of course.
But the evidence suggests that slogging it out is required in most jurisdictions.
Choice advocates around the nation would rightly be discouraged by the November 2nd results if the campaign had exposed real inadequacies in educational choice, but it did not. Instead of suffering discouragement, therefore, let those advocates use California '93 as the laboratory it was and learn from it the lessons of success for other efforts. These include not just the lessons of how to do the task better, but also the lesson of what inertia means, and especially the lesson of how professional, entrenched, extremely well-funded opposition is able to employ inertia. Effectively manipulated inertia determined the November 2 outcome. The last advantage choice advocates can glean from California is to grasp and portray this fact: the mammoth, self-perpetuating, lavishly funded effort by EFM's supporters to sustain the status quo without ever defending its educational quality is itself a remarkable powerful reason for breaking the monopoly and replacing it with parental choice. EFM is self-serving and out of control. The reporting during the Prop. 174 campaign provided overwhelming evidence of this vital point. Readers would probably find no single portrayal better than Dan Morain's "Teachers Union Shows Clout in Fight Against Prop. 174" in the October 25 Los Angeles Times. Even if a citizen had absolutely no interest in educational funding policy, that citizen would nonetheless be greatly concerned over the ability of one vested interest to use tax dollars to control state government on matters of interest to itself.
California
In Perspective
The entirely
expected happened in California on November 2. Would that it might
have been otherwise, but for a variety of reasons, many of which are discussed
in this Report, we now know that November 2, 1993, was not the right time,
California was not the right place, and Prop. 174 was not the right vehicle
to secure the parental freedom and justice school choice will provide.
So be it.
The continuing task for educational choice advocates remains unchanged: to clear away the fog surrounding educational choice and protecting educational finance monopoly (EFM); to help the "natural constituencies" of choice see its virtues; to form those groups into efficacious alliances able to overcome inertia and counter the political forces sustaining EFM; and to unify in support of a specific choice plan most pertinent to a specific jurisdiction. (See, e.g., the Blum Center's 'Roadmap to Educational Choice: Getting There From Here.')
An immediate task, however, is to prevent the California results from being misused and misinterpreted. Choice opponents wrongly but probably will describe those results as somehow showing a general inadequacy of educational choice. Some enthusiastic choice supporters may suffer despair over the outcome, having expected California to be a shortcut rather than another step on a long path. When choice advocates contemplating action ask how long their "enlistment" must be, this editor always answers "for the duration." There appears to be no other rational answer. For the duration — until with victory in one place, then another and another, the snowball has enough mass and momentum to be unstoppable as it travels from state to state.
From that perspective, California can rightly be seen as another step along the way. From it we want to take whatever it has to offer to make next steps more successful. And we want to see how best to deflect and disarm misinterpretations from any quarter. Those are the two objectives of this Report. n
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