The Blum Center's Educational Freedom Report

 

No. 37 - July 19, 1996

 

Contents:

 

California Iowa Maryland New York Ohio Oklahoma Wisconsin Opportunity Missed Recent Acquisitions Announcements Organization Information Correcting An Error of Attribution Financing Education: The Struggle Between Governmental Monopoly and Parental Choice, Quentin L. Quade, Table of Contents The Editor's View on Two Ghastly Specters, Part Two: When Parents are Denied

 

IN THIS REPORT
Readers will find important state-level developments (including vital activities where the tall corn grows), Blum Center information, the table of contents of the Editor's new book, David Kirkpatrick's excellent piece on "What Good Old Days?" and part two of the Editor's View on "Two Ghastly Specters."

CALIFORNIA
As forecast, the Democratic-controlled California Senate has obstructed the effort of the Republican Governor and Republican-controlled Assembly to bring limited but genuine school choice to parents of the most endangered students. (See Freedom Report #36 for a description of AB 3180.) Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) proposed another bill in place of the one previously approved by the Assembly, which would cost a total of $120 million a year and would throw $91 million in direct aid to troubled public schools. Lockyer's bill was approved by the Senate on a 23-12 vote, and sent to the Assembly. Opponents of Lockyer's bill were vocal in their dissent. Senator Ray Haynes (R-Riverside) said, "You'll get the same money to do the same bad job," and Senator Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) agreed: "The problem with this bill, quite simply, is we are choosing to reward failure rather than excellence." It seems unlikely that the Assembly and Senate will be able to reach consensus on either bill in the near future. (San Francisco Chronicle, 06/28/96)

Kevin Teasley, long-time California school choice advocate and Vice President of the Los-Angeles-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture, proposed a compromise to the apparent showdown: "After identifying the bad schools, Wilson should give Lockyer the money he wants to try to improve them. Similarly, Lockyer should let Wilson give parents vouchers so they can seek the immediate relief they most certainly want from these schools. The biggest beneficiary of the Wilson plan would be poor families; if parents have the means to take their children elsewhere, they probably have already done so." Teasley also noted the benefits for the respective opponents' political parties in respect to dollars needed to launch, in the case of the mostly Republican supporters of vouchers, and oppose, in the case of the Democrats (and a big source of their money-backing, the California Teachers Association), a voucher initiative in 1998, which would drain campaign coffers on both sides of the issue. Said Teasley, "By compromising, not only would both sides win one for the kids, parents and schools, but they also would give their parties a boost." (Los Angeles Times, 07/02/96) According to Teasley, Senator Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles), a member of the education committee who did not vote on the issue, and who is considering a run for Mayor of Los Angeles, told committee members he supports Teasley's idea, and advised that they should also consider giving it their support.

IOWA
The Blum Center and the Freedom Report have rightly given much attention to the excellent and well known parental freedom efforts in many states, e.g., Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, et al. It gives us particular pleasure (did someone say the Editor is a native Iowan?) to add Iowa to the list of states truly blazing a trail for school choice without financial penalty.

Iowa has long had a Minnesota-like state tax credit for private school tuition costs. This year, Iowa's school choice leaders managed to lift the value of that credit from the original amount, 5%, to 10% of the first $1,000 the taxpayer pays for tuition and textbooks in accredited schools. The maximum credit is $100 per child. (Copies of the legislation are now available; see Blum Center Recent Acquisitions, p. 3.)

This bill, SF 2467, which was just enacted in the 1996 legislative session, updated and improved the 1987 legislation, which was a combination tax credit/tax deduction law, and did not apply to taxpayers with a net income of $45,000 or more. SF 2467 essentially does three things: 1) it eliminates the old deduction or credit arrangement and makes it a credit for all taxpayers with eligible expenses; 2) it allows all taxpayers to take the credit - not just those with a net income of under $45,000; and 3) it raises the credit from 5% to 10% of the first $1,000 the taxpayer pays for tuition and textbooks in accredited schools. The new legislation will apply to the tax years beginning January 1, 1996, which means taxpayers will be able to take advantage of this credit when they complete their 1996 income taxes.

Now, continuing the logic of their previous achievements, school choice leadership led by the Iowa Catholic Conference, and assisted by Tim McCarthy and Bart Rule of the Conference's staff, are proposing the introduction of a refundable tax credit proposal which would provide $500.00 to Iowa parents who choose independent schools for K-8 students, and $1,000 for grades 9-12. This very thoughtful legislation is expected to be before the Iowa legislature in 1996-97 and is a vital development for all to observe as the Conference is very optimistic. We will keep you informed. (Information supplied by Mr. Bart Rule of the Iowa Catholic Conference.)

MARYLAND
Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke announced that his task force on school choice has completed a round of six hearings, and is preparing to offer a report on its findings this fall. The Mayor supports expanding educational choices for Baltimore parents and students, especially for those who can't afford private schools. On Monday, June 24, the Mayor, along with several prominent Maryland Democrats, and the Republican near-Governor Ellen R. Sauerbrey, attended a forum on school choice, sponsored by the Calvert Institute for Policy Research. J.C. Watts, a Republican congressman from Oklahoma in favor of school choice, was scheduled to speak on the occasion, but was ultimately detained in his home state, offering Schmoke the opportunity to extemporize in Watts' place. Schmoke was not without a supportive word for the merits of school choice, which encouraged advocates greatly. (Morning Sun, 06/26/96)

NEW YORK
The United New Yorkers for Choice in Education (UNYCE) report the addition of another sponsor of the Maltese-Hikind bill. (See Freedom Report #30) Republican Assemblyman Patrick Manning has joined the ranks of those supportive of full school choice for New York state, and brings the total number of sponsors of the Maltese-Hikind proposal to twenty-one, a group consisting of four senators and seventeen assembly members. Additionally, Attorney General Denis Vacco included a bill, S. 7216, to amend the statewide education law to include a provision for a "pilot project scholarship program." This bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator Serphin Maltese, and UNYCE has begun the process of having an identical bill introduced in the Assembly. The Attorney General's bill falls short of the comprehensive approach of the Maltese-Hikind bill, which still has UNYCE's full support. S. 7216 provides for testing a pilot voucher program in one school district in each county across New York state. Supporters of genuine educational choice realize that such a pilot project might be a necessary intermediate step on the road to full choice for all parents and students. (Choice Notes, May-June, 1996)

OHIO
On June 24, the battle for limited school choice in Cleveland took place in the form of oral arguments which lasted three hours before Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Lisa L. Sadler. At issue is the fate of a pilot voucher program which would give the parents of 1,500 Cleveland students tuition vouchers worth up to $2,250 to spend at the private school of their choice. Attorney Clint Bolick's argument on behalf of school choice focused on the American Federation of Teachers' attorneys' designation of parents as "formal but inconsequential conduits" in the transmission of education-dedicated tax dollars to religious schools. Bolick hopes that the overblown rhetoric of the program's opponents will assist his cause: "It exposes better than anything I've ever seen the patronizing ideology that pervades our opponents." (Institute for Justice memo, 06/25/96) Neither side expects that Sadler's ruling, expected some time this month, will be the end of the story, since both proponents and opponents plan to appeal the ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. (Plain Dealer, 06/25/96)

OKLAHOMA
Governor Frank Keating had a few tough words for what he called the "dumbing down of Oklahoma youngsters" at a June news conference. Although the Governor clearly sees the 47,000-member Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) as "an arm of the state's Democratic Party," and recognizes the merits in breaking the educational finance monopoly to which the union-backed, Democratic-controlled Oklahoma legislature is wed, he is not in principle "against teachers." In his annual State of the State Address in 1996, the Governor proposed spending $11 million in bonus pay for teachers working in the fastest-improving schools. The OEA opposed the proposal, and it ultimately died in the legislature. (Education Week, 07/10/96)

WISCONSIN
Proponents of school choice in Wisconsin are awaiting August 15, when an evidentiary hearing on school choice will be held in Madison. Former Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent, Dr. Howard Fuller, will be among those testifying at the hearing. (Institute for Justice memo, 06/25/96) At issue is the future of the expansion of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to include religious schools. (See Freedom Report #36)

OPPORTUNITY MISSED
The July 11 Wall Street Journal ran a large op ed piece by Professor Laurence Steinberg. Drawing on evidence Steinberg and co-authors compiled for their new book Beyond the Classroom: Why School Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do, Steinberg recounts various family conditions which doom many school reforms before they start. In sum, their data show substantial family disengagement from children's education, with deleterious results on educational achievement.

What a marvelous opportunity this would have been for the Journal to make a companion point: "the natural moral contract of school choice," forged when schools are freely chosen, is a strong inducement to families and students to be committed and engaged with their schools, public or private, rather than alienated and distant.

Recent Acquisitions
¨ Iowa Senate File 2467 is now available from the Blum Center (see IOWA above); also, a summary of tax credit law in Iowa is available, along with the recent publicity statement made by Iowa bishops on May 14, announcing that a new proposal would be on the table for the 1997 Iowa Legislature's consideration to provide $26 million dollars in tax relief to parents who pay tuition to accredited nonpublic schools. For further information, contact Bart Rule at 505 5th Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50309-2393, 515-243-6256, FAX 515-243-6257.

Announcements
¨ With the attached piece on "What Good Old Days?" David Kirkpatrick completes one year of contributions to the Freedom Report and to the Blum Center's work. From his position as Distinguished Fellow of the Center David has provided a splendid series of commentaries on parental freedom and school choice. We look forward to the continuation of these reflections on crucial aspects of our vital topic, just as do David's many admirers among the Freedom Report's readers.

¨ The Editor's new book from Transaction Publishers, Financing Education, The Struggle Between Governmental Monopoly and Parental Control, delayed in its date of release because of a printer's snag which hit all the publisher's books last month, will be available about the same time this Freedom Report is distributed. Those who have placed orders should be receiving them soon. Any readers who wish to place orders can do so by contacting Transaction Publishers at Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, 908-445-2280, FAX 908-445-3138. The book's table of contents appears in the adjoining section.

¨ Congratulations to David Urbanski, Blum Center Associate and regular contributor to the Educational Freedom Report, and his wife, Grace, who are the proud parents of their first child, Clare, born July 8, 1996! Our best wishes to the Urbanski family, and with great progress, we may see true choice in education by the time Clare is ready for Kindergarten!

Organization Information
¨ United New Yorkers for Choice in Education (UNYCE) announces a change in its office phone number: (516) 292-1224, and FAX information may be sent to (516) 292-9019, until further notice.

¨ CEO (Children's Educational Opportunity) America has announced in its summer, 1996 issue of Voucher Voice, that six new privately-funded voucher programs are scheduled to launch in 1996: The FOCUS Fund in Chicago, Illinois; Oklahoman Scholarship Fund, in Oklahoma City; CEO Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; CEO Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska; New Jersey Fund for Educational Opportunity in Jersey City, New Jersey; and CEO Seattle in Seattle, Washington. For further information on any or all of these new organizations, please contact CEO America, Fritz Steiger, President, at P.O. Box 1543, Bentonville, AR 72712-1543, Phone 501-273-6958, FAX 501-273-9362.

Correcting An Error of Attribution
¨An error of attribution was made in Freedom Report #36, under the Washington, D.C. heading: The quote attributed to House Speaker Newt Gingrich should have been attributed to Representative James Talent (R-Missouri). Our apologies are extended to both gentlemen, and to our readers. 

---

 

1. Introduction

 

Symptoms of Educational Distress, and A Primary Cause

2. The Symptoms of America's Educational Distress

3. A Special and Definitive Symptom

4. A Primary Cause: Educational Finance Monopoly

 

A Powerful Cure, Its Worldwide Popularity,
How It Might Look in the United States

 

5. A Powerful Cure: Parental Freedom via School Choice

6. A World of Experience with School Choice

7. It Can Be Done Here, Too: American School Choice Examples

 

Then, Why Not Here, Now?

 

8. Why Are We in a Quagmire? I: Historical Accidents,

Social Inertia, and Political Frustration

9. Why Are We in a Quagmire? II: Who Would Do Such

A Thing?

10. Why Are We in a Quagmire? III: The Rhetorical Tools

of EFM's Defenders

11. Why Are We in a Quagmire? IV: The Political Tools of

EFM's Defenders

 

The Many Paths to Parental Freedom and School Choice

 

12. Parental Freedom via School Choice: Getting There

From Here

 

The Editor's View On: Two Ghastly Specters, Part Two: When Parents Are Denied

In the preceding Freedom Report I urged those fearful of governmental intrusion on independent schools to confront that problem and an even larger one: the suffocation of independent schools under today's educational finance monopoly (EFM). I will illustrate the fact of suffocation with a brief look at the Catholic example.

Looking at Catholic school experience from the period 1960 to 1993, we note that the absolute number of Catholic elementary schools shrank 32.3% or almost one-third from 1960 to 1993. The number of Catholic high schools in the same period of time, 1960 to 1993, suffered a shrinkage of 48.5%, almost half. Continuing on with the Catholic comparison, but looking at enrolled students rather than numbers of schools, in the period 1960 to 1993 Catholic K-8 enrollment numbers declined 54.4%. And in the same period, 1960 to 1993, Catholic grades 9-12 enrollment declined 33.5%, or more than a third. (All data from Table #264 of the Census Bureau's 1995 Statistical Abstract.) These are absolute numbers, even while the gross enrollments in American K-8 and 9-12 were essentially stable and while the Roman Catholic proportion of the population was increasing from 25% to 26% between 1967 and 1993. (Table #83.)

In the years when the unparalleled generosity of the nuns provided essentially free school choice to Catholics those Catholics responded by sending their children in enormous numbers to Catholic schools. They wanted those schools, and there was little financial penalty in choosing them. When the number of teaching nuns fell to the vanishing point, and it became necessary to pony-up hard cash, Catholics began confronting the financial realities of educational finance monopoly and the financial vise that it carries with it. As we have just seen, Catholic school numbers fell precipitously even as the proportion of Catholics in society was growing. It probably is not possible to find clearer evidence of the murderous effect of the financial vise than this: Catholics lose their "free" private choice system over time; socially-sponsored school choice does not replace it, but the financial vise does; the schools and the parental option shrink and, in the cities where they are most desperately needed, often die. Let no one content themselves with blaming the victims: "Tsk, tsk — too bad the Catholics have not been willing to sacrifice more." Except in self-evidently emergency circumstances, such as war time, rational public policy is not built on the expectation of long-term heroic sacrifice to right an unnecessary injustice. It is simply utopian to imagine otherwise. Rational policy is built on normal human expectations, and Catholics have responded to the financial vise about the way one would expect: by a slow, begrudging, but inevitable collapse of schools and enrollments squeezed in its fierce jaws. That vise, that inevitable corollary of educational finance monopoly, is the culprit. The Catholic parents and all other parents, especially those of middling to modest incomes, are its victims.

What are we to conclude? The independent alternative is doing tolerably well only in circumstances that are not surprising, circumstances of relative wealth. Such independent vitality as there is has moved from city to suburb — "where the money is," as Willie Sutton might say. Another of the major shifts within the gross numbers: even as the Roman Catholic population in K-12 was plummeting (as a direct result of political injustice to Catholic parents) it was being partially off-set in the independent sector by substantial growth of non-Catholic religious schools, particularly suburban Protestant schools. Protestant parents in increasing numbers were abandoning the previously Protestant-oriented public schools as those public schools became increasingly lowest-common-denominator ethical venues, uninviting or even unacceptable for many people of religious bent, whether Catholic or other. It was this "replacement" of Catholics by Protestants that largely explains the appearance of relative independent school stability. That appearance, in truth, masked two massive upheavals: the killing of Catholic capacity to choose, and the abandonment of public schools by many religiously-concerned Protestants able to buy private schools. All indications are that this substitution of Protestant enrollments for dying Catholic ones has peaked. There is a limited number of parents, Protestant, Catholic, or other, who are able, from discretionary income, to offset the ruinous effects of the financial vise.

The natural pluralism of America's parents and guardians is frustrated by educational finance monopoly, choked by the burdens it places on those who would choose private schools, and largely barren of the bountiful school variety one would naturally anticipate. Those who champion parental freedom via school choice without financial penalty should always be alert to the corrupting potential of government aid systems — and find the obvious and relatively simple ways to avoid such corruption in reality. But all citizens who care for parental rights and freedom, and the pluralism which would naturally proceed from such happy conditions, should realize that enemy number one is educational finance monopoly, in which all school tax dollars are assigned bureaucratically only to the monopoly's own schools. It is oppressing parents and killing educational freedom here and now. That is the most ghastly specter. Circumspect opponents of over-extended government, it would seem, should be strong collaborators in the struggle to replace EFM with parental freedom via school choice without financial penalty. Even if they imagine there is a potential for appreciable governmental intrusiveness via voucher-type methods, they should be able to see the vast superiority of parental freedom over the current governmental monopoly. And, even if they have as their ultimate objective the complete withdrawal of government from schooling, they should be able to see school choice as, from their perspective, a superior halfway house. If, instead, they insist on "no change short of complete withdrawal of government from schooling," they will be, whatever their intention, forces supporting government monopoly and blocking parental freedom.n

 

View a different issue of the Freedom Report                 Return to Blum Center Home Page
 

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 Brooks Hall, Room 209 Marquette University * P.O. Box 1881 * Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881 Phone: 414-288-7040* Fax: 414-288-3170 E-mail: blumcenter@vms.csd.mu.edu

Copyright ©1998 Marquette University -- All rights reserved. Last update: November 1, 1998