- IN THIS REPORT
Readers will read about important state-level developments, new documents and information available, and an Editor's comment on the ironic use of "short supply" to kill new supply of independent school seats.
CALIFORNIA
The San Francisco-based organization, Bay C.A.R.E. (Californians
Advocating Reform in Education), filed the Education Freedom Initiative
on August 14, and must now collect a minimum of almost 700,000 signatures
to place the proposal on the 1996 ballot. (Education Week, 09/06/95)
The proposal would amend the California Constitution, and would use savings
from the transfer of students from public to private schools to fund the
program. (San Francisco Chronicle, 08/31/95) Under the proposal,
vouchers would be worth $1,000 a year for kindergarten, $1,500 for first
grade, $2,250 for second grade, and $3,500 for grades three through twelve.
According to Deborah Wright, member of Bay C.A.R.E.'s board of directors,
the group must raise $1 million for its petition drive. Wright noted that
exit polls conducted after the defeat of Prop. 174 in 1993 showed that
if areas of concern regarding the proposal were addressed, 70% to 80% of
the people would support vouchers. (Education Week, 09/06/95) Assemblyman
Bernie Richter (R-Chico), who also supports the proposal, noted, "Public
education in California will only improve when parents are given the freedom
to choose, in a free and open marketplace, where to spend their...tax dollars
to provide the best education for their children." (San Francisco Chronicle,
08/31/95)
Another group of Californians has delayed its efforts to place a proposal on the ballot in 1996. The San Diego-based American Education Reform Foundation, financially backed by John Walton and William Oberndorf, a Bay Area investor, has announced that it will postpone its ballot initiative efforts until at least 1998. (Los Angeles Times, 08/16/95) Eugene Ruffin, President of the Foundation, said the postponement was necessary because of a lack of understanding about the "root causes of the 'crisis' in public education," and the need to overcome that lack of understanding before proceeding. (San Francisco Chronicle, 08/18/95)
KANSAS
Kansas Representative Kay O'Connor reports that Kansas
Senator Barbara Lawrence has been selected as the new Chair of the Senate
Education Committee, and has already publicly stated that school voucher
legislation will be heard in committee this next session, though only three
of eleven committee members have indicated friendliness toward some type
of school choice legislation to date. Also, interest in educational choice
has caused networking and mobilizing efforts among several of its natural
constituencies in Kansas. Kansas City businessman, Fred Thorp, has agreed
to form a 501 (c) (3) organization of over one thousand Kansas citizens
who have expressed their support for educational choice to Rep. O'Connor.
Meanwhile, the Citizens for Educational Freedom (CEF) will attempt to have
their lobbying forces in place for the January session. Beginning October
1, the Catholic dioceses will also have hired a person to form a network
of Catholic schools on behalf of educational choice, and possibly do some
lobbying as well. Finally, two or three other legislators may soon join
Rep. O'Connor in the fight for parental rights and freedom of education
in Kansas by filing their own school choice legislation. O'Connor supports
any such efforts, since she believes they will only help the cause, and
show the breadth of interest in vouchers. (Information provided by Rep.
O'Connor, 09/06/95)
NEW YORK
Tim Mulhearn of United New Yorkers for Choice in Education
(UNYCE) reports that the 1995 session of the New York State Legislature
closed with a growing awareness among legislators of the need for educational
choice. The "Elementary and Secondary Education Improvement Act" (S. 1388/A.
2053) was brought to the attention of legislators, and ultimately referred
to the Senate and Assembly Education Committees. (See Freedom Report
#21 for a description of this proposal.) The bill was re-introduced by
long-time school choice supporters Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn)
and Senator Serphin Maltese (R-Queens), who have been named to the Education
Reform Honor Roll for their co-sponsorship of the most significant education
reform proposal to have been introduced into the New York State Legislature
during the 1995 session. (Choice Notes newsletter, July-August,
1995, No. 2) For further information about UNYCE or future legislative
efforts, contact Tim Mulhearn at P.O. Box 4096, Hempstead, New York 11551-4096.
OHIO
When on June 30 Ohio Governor George V. Voinovich signed
the pilot school voucher program as passed by Ohio's legislature, Ohio
became the first state in the nation to have completed enactment of school
choice including religious schools. Wisconsin's legislature had already
passed such legislation, but it was not signed into law until July 25.
Ohio's program is a pilot for the Cleveland Public School District only
and provides $5.5 million for that purpose. With implementation in September,
1996, the program is available to children entering K through 3rd grade
at that time. The plan calls for one grade to be added each year up to
and including 8th grade. The value of each scholarship will not exceed
$2,250 except for handicapped students. (Plain Dealer, 08/12/95.
See Educational Freedom Report #24 for more on the bill's passage.)
A copy of H.B. 117, along with additional information on the program is
now available at the Blum Center. (See Recent Acquisitions below.)
OKLAHOMA
Senator Don Rubottom continues to work on behalf of educational
choice for the citizens of Oklahoma. His SJR 18 was re-introduced in the
Oklahoma Legislature this year, with the firm support of the Committee
for Oklahoma Education Reform (COER). For information regarding current
legislative efforts in Oklahoma, or to receive the quarterly COER newsletter,
The Free Market School Advocate, contact COER's Chairman, Charles
Coombs, at 5718 NW 23rd Apt.250w, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73127, (405)
942-5358.
PENNSYLVANIA
Governor Ridge is not giving up the fight for parental
rights and educational choice for Pennsylvania's citizens, although House
Republican leaders in the legislature did not include a school choice proposal
on their fall agenda. The agenda, called "Keeping Pennsylvania on Course,"
was made public on September 13, and no mention of school choice specifically,
nor education reform generally, was included as an item scheduled for attention
during the fall session. According to House Majority Leader, John Perzel
(R-Philadelphia), the bill continues to be about seven votes short of passage
in the House. Ellen Yount, Ridge's director of communications, emphasized
that passing an education reform package is still a "top priority for the
governor." Yount said that Ridge will continue his efforts to attract votes
until a package is approved by the General Assembly. (Philadelphia Inquirer,
09/14/95)
WASHINGTON, D.C.
As Freedom Report readers were previously informed
(see Freedom Reports #20 and #22), the District of Columbia school
system is the subject of a new proposal drafted by Representative Steve
Gunderson (R-Wisconsin) at the request of House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
As part of a comprehensive reform measure to increase parents' involvement
in their children's education, renovate crumbling schools, overhaul operations,
and address the schools' failing financial system, the plan would create
a scholarship fund for low-income families "to enhance their educational
choices." The House may consider legislation on the school reform plan
early this fall. (Education Week, 09/06/95)
WISCONSIN
As reported in Educational Freedom Report #26,
the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously issued a preliminary injunction
on August 25, halting the expansion of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
(MPCP) to include religious schools until the Court has had time to decide
if the expansion is constitutional. Both defenders and opponents of MPCP
expansion expect that the Court will not make a final decision before spring.
Three hundred and seventy-five Milwaukee children had already started classes on August 23, in thirteen different Catholic schools in the city when the injunction was passed. The injunction immediately prompted a private emergency campaign to raise tuition money for the children now not able to participate in the program. The campaign was spearheaded by Partners Advancing Values in Education (PAVE), Milwaukee's privately-funded scholarship program, which is under the leadership of Dan McKinley, its executive director. Already $1.4 million has been raised for the emergency fund, $1 million of which came from Milwaukee's Bradley Foundation, and $75,000 of which came from the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. Michael Joyce, president of the Bradley Foundation, happily announced a $1 million gift on August 30 at a meeting of parents and school choice supporters, but firmly stated at the same time that "private charity cannot and must not be a substitute for what is yours by right as citizens of this great country." (New York Times, 08/26/95; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 08/29/95, 08/31/95, 09/01/95, 09/10/95)
Finally, on September 7 the Wisconsin Supreme Court resolved a recent dispute over the question of who would defend MPCP in the ACLU's lawsuit against it. The court decided that Gov. Tommy Thompson will be able to appoint his own private attorney, Edward Marion, even though the Attorney General for Wisconsin, James Doyle, insisted that the job belonged to him. Proponents of school choice, including Gov. Thompson, have questioned the depth of Doyle's interest in defending MPCP. Doyle may still present his defense before the court, but Marion will be the principal attorney. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 09/08/95)
In Memoriam
¨ We are deeply sorry
to report that Wisconsin Senator John Plewa succumbed to cancer on Wednesday,
September 13. Senator Plewa, a Democrat, was a staunch advocate of school
choice for a quarter of a century, and, without doubt, a primary influence
helping to achieve a supportive political climate in Wisconsin. He authored
an excellent tax credit proposal, SB 310, of 1993. The parents of Wisconsin
and the nation are in his debt.
Announcements
¨ Maryland has recently
launched an effort to establish an organization to assist parents in changing
public policy on state support for children in religious schools. The Maryland
Federation of Catholic School Parents was the subject of a July 5 meeting
in Annapolis of school superintendents from the archdioceses of Baltimore
and Washington, and the diocese of Wilmington, Delaware to discuss the
founding of the federation. For further information, please contact Mary
Ellen Russell at the Maryland Catholic Conference, 188 Duke of Gloucester
St., Annapolis, Maryland 21401-2515, (410) 269-1155.
Recent Acquisitions
¨ The Blum Center has
acquired a copy of Bay C.A.R.E.'s Educational Freedom Amendment. (See CALIFORNIA
above.) For additional information regarding the amendment, please contact
David Schumann of Bay C.A.R.E. at P.O. Box 611660, San Jose, California
95161-1660, (408) 241-8417, FAX (408) 241-8632.
¨ Copies of the July, 1995, Wisconsin statutes enabling the expansion of Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program to include religious schools are now available from the Blum Center. We also have copies available of affidavits filed recently with the Wisconsin Supreme Court by former Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, Dr. Howard Fuller, and Wisconsin's budget director, Richard G. Chandler, on behalf of the expanded Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.
¨ HOPE for Cleveland's Children has provided the Blum Center with a copy of the Cleveland pilot voucher program legislation, H.B. 117, which is scheduled to begin in September, 1996 (see OHIO above). An additional information sheet is available that answers frequently-asked questions about the Cleveland program and about HOPE. Please contact Hope for Cleveland's Children at 7609 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, 44103, (216) 391-4673, for additional information.
¨ An executive summary of Family Service of America's (FSA) Third Annual Evaluation of PAVE's Scholarship Program, dated August 16, 1995, is also on file at the Blum Center. Among other important points regarding the high percentage of parents satisfied with the performance of their children's schools over the last three years, the summary quotes Dr. Maureen Wahl, Director of Research for FSA, saying, "the FSA data indicate that when parents choose a school for their child they enter into a partnership with the school and become involved in the activities of the school." This reinforces an oft-stated Blum Center contention regarding the "moral contract" formed between parents and the teachers and administrators of their school of choice: together, they can ensure that an excellent education for their children is obtained.
Upcoming Conference
¨ The Reason Foundation
is sponsoring a conference called "Making Schools Work: Competitive Contracting
for School Services," to be held in Santa Barbara, California, November
17-18, 1995. Participants will "learn how schools are using the management
tool of competitive contracting to bring excellence to every part of the
learning environment." Speakers will include Superintendent of Minneapolis
Public Schools and President of the Public Strategies Group, Peter Hutchinson;
President of Sylvan Learning Systems, Doug Becker; President of American
Association of Educators in Private Practice, Carey Stacy; and Senior Vice
President of the Edison Project, Stephen Tracy, among others. For more
information about the conference, contact Annie Chang at the Reason Foundation,
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400, Los Angeles, California, 90034-6064,
(310) 391-2245.
- The educational finance monopoly's public schools in
the District of Columbia, by any known measure, are a disgrace. Their educational
quality is pathetically low, even as their costs are extraordinarily high.
Worst of all, those schools become the burial grounds for the hopes and
potential of thousands of young people and the desperate parents standing
behind them.
Though President Clinton could see that and, accordingly, enroll his daughter in an exclusive private school; and though the vast majority of his party's other Washington elected officials do the same; it was no surprise that he and they, while in control of the District, would not seek school choice for District citizens financially unable to provide it for themselves. The NEA and AFT would frown on any such thing.
But when control of Congress shifted after the November 8, 1994, elections there was new hope that the District's parents might be delivered from their bondage to educational finance monopoly (EFM). The new Congressional leadership was supportive of school choice. The national chairman of the new majority party, the day after the election, gave an inspired and insightful testimonial to the fruitful capacity of school choice without financial penalty. Sure enough, in late January, 1995, the House Speaker took an initiative which, if consummated, would make school choice in some form a part of an overall attempt to rescue the District's schools. Whether that happens, and whether the congressional efforts to enact legislation authorizing pilot school choice programs on a national basis are successful this year, remains to be seen.
But as someone who has been called upon to urge and counsel action in both those directions, and who has thus had the opportunity to hear the concerns of various key people — Congressmen, staff, media — I think it is important to pass along a particular lesson gleaned from the process to this point. This is a lesson about the weight of the social inertia which helps keep EFM in place, and the ease with which EFM's defenders can use that inertia to obstruct school choice-based action against the status quo.
The effort to make parental freedom a significant part of rescuing the District's young people has encountered all the usual smoke screens, from all the "usual suspects." But among those people in a position to influence the outcome, representatives of the new majority not in thrall to the NEA-AFT, the most paralyzing refrain has been this: "Well, I agree school choice sounds reasonable, and on the surface seems attractive for the District — but there is something which greatly lessens its usefulness. There is no significant supply of independent school seats in the District. To talk of school choice when there are only hundreds of seats available is to raise false hopes. Therefore, let's not talk about it."
Let us think a moment about this ruinous perspective. First, most obvious, and least important, there is much more supply, in the thousands of seats, if D.C. choice certificates were portable to other communities on the District's periphery. But of much greater moment is this fact: there is little District supply because EFM itself has killed that supply, in two ways. By artificially precluding parental freedom of choice, it has choked off the supply of independent schools and seats. By spawning ruinous public schools it has ensured that the surviving independent schools will be nearly full. And now the incredible irony presents itself: EFM is humanly destructive; school choice promises real relief; but we dare not use it since EFM has created such a mess. We must keep the status quo because we must keep the status quo.
Missing from such self-defeating and circular conclusions is any realization that supply of empty seats in independent schools is not a static number but a dynamic one. It will ebb and flow precisely in response to dollars available to secure such seats. Put dollars in a pipeline marked "Parental Freedom to Choose" and over time see the supply of seats grow — and, at the same time, see the responsiveness of the public schools grow. Supply of new schools and seats could be expected from churches and neighborhood organizations anxious to rescue their youngsters — the same spirit which maintains current independent schools against all funding odds. Non-profit and for-profit charter-type schools could be expected, as well, if they were able to compete against traditional private schools. Supply, killed by EFM, can be reborn by school choice without financial penalty. To say "No choice now, because limited supply now" is, in effect, to reward EFM for one of its worst results by ensuring the continuance of that humanly-destructive condition.n
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The Blum Center grants full permission for all of its documents to be copied, in part or in whole, to extend the reach of the Center's messages and information. We appreciate it when our readers keep us apprised of state and national developments in the area of school choice, particularly legislative developments. Any Blum Center documents not available on our web page may be obtained by contacting us by telephone, fax, or mail. Virgil C. Blum Center for Parental Freedom in Education |
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