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- Contents:
- IN THIS REPORT
Readers will find some commentary on and description of pertinent election results; other important state-level developments on the parental freedom front, including the vitally important inaction of the U.S. Supreme Court on the matter of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program; and the concluding Part III of the Editor’s View on Where Do We Go From Here?
THE
EDITOR’S COMMENT ON THE STRANGE BUT TRUE ELECTIONS OF 1998
American voters
in many jurisdictions, by their November 3 actions, have made the political
world a safer place for America’s parents and children — and a much riskier
place for educational finance monopoly (EFM). In some elections parental
freedom was an overt issue, while in others it was more muted — but the
cause advanced in any case.
Freedom Report readers realize that the central struggle over American K-12 education is a political not an educational one: will funding policy enable parents, seeking their child’s welfare, to assign some or all of the tax dollars already raised for education, or will it continue to put all those tax dollars in the self-serving hands of EFM? While it is easy for objective observers to see that parents should have such freedom, and a monopoly should not exist, history deprived America’s parents and empowered a monopoly. Social inertia, incessant smoke screens, and deeply-entrenched political liaisons have conspired to freeze parents out and reinforce monopoly control.
The solution
to such a deeply-rooted political problem can only be a political solution:
blow away the smoke screens; lift the yoke of social inertia from the voters’
necks; destroy the confusion of ends and means, so that all schooling methods
— governmental, independent, home — can be seen as legitimate alternative
means to the good end of children’s educational growth, equally deserving
of tax dollars if tax dollars there are; break the unholy alliances between
EFM and state legislative processes by making parental freedom the true
political objective; and through all such steps help citizens realize that
justice demands that parent and guardian love be permitted to determine
educational choices.
On November
8, 1994, American voters made possible unprecedented strides toward parental
freedom. Between then and now, five states enacted new or expanded
programs of school choice, and significant progress was made in many others.
November 3, 1998, provided in many respects a bizarre set of elections,
and irony abounded: "lotteries for education" providing the margin
of victory in some places; the ultimate citizen protest producing victory
for "The Body" in Minnesota, a humiliating third place for pro-EFM Son
of Hubert in the same race — but, also, alas, a second-place finish for
a strong supporter of parental freedom there; low turnout, thought to be
advantageous for family-values types turning out to be occasion for urban
center get-out-the-vote efforts to succeed. But amidst such strange
developments there were many cases in which parental freedom was a clear
winner, momentum was used and supplemented. We have come a long way
toward sanity in recent years, and this year's elections, strange as they
were, have advanced the cause of parental freedom in many jurisdictions,
as the following capsules will make plain. (Contact the Blum Center
for questions regarding the sources of these results.)
Arkansas – Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has previously shown support for school choice, won with 60% of the vote.
Colorado – State Treasurer Bill Owens, who strongly supports tuition tax credits, was elected governor by a narrow margin, with 49% of the vote. Amendment 17, which would have allowed parents to claim up to $2,500 in tax credits for their children’s tuition at private schools, was defeated 59% to 41%. However, this represents a gain in support for school choice since the last school choice ballot initiative was tried in Colorado, in 1992; that initiative was defeated 2-1. Mr. John Burnett was elected to the state Board of Education, and he has stated that he supports vouchers.
Georgia – Sen. Paul Coverdell, author of the tax-free savings account proposal for K-12 educational expenses that Congress approved this summer, was reelected to his position in the U.S. Senate with 52.2% of the vote. His campaign centered on his dedication to educational issues.
Florida – Mr.
Jeb Bush, who recommends a voucher program for the state’s failing schools,
was elected governor with 55% of the vote. Mr. Tom Gallagher, who
supports Gov. Bush’s position on vouchers, was elected as Education Commissioner
of Florida with 56.5% of the vote.
Idaho – Mr. Dirk Kempthorne,
who supports a pilot program for tuition tax credits, was elected governor
with 67.6% of the vote.
Illinois – Mr. George Ryan won the seat of governor with 51.3% of the vote. As mentioned in last month’s Freedom Report, Ryan announced that he would support a $500 tuition tax credit proposal for families who send their children to non-public schools.
New Mexico – Gov. Gary Johnson, who was highlighted in last November’s issue of the Freedom Report for his strong support for parental freedom in education, was reelected with 53.8% of the vote.
Oregon – Unfortunately Mr. Bill Sizemore, who called for tuition tax credits in his campaign, was not able to gain enough votes to oust the incumbent Gov. John Kitzhaber (31.2% against 63%). This margin, however, was anticipated in polls taken before the election. Yet in the race for State House District 54, Mr. Tim Knopp won with 53% of the vote, and he supports tuition tax credits.
Pennsylvania – Gov. Tom Ridge, who has demonstrated clear support for school choice in past years, won reelection with 57.5% of the vote.
Texas – Gov. George Bush was reelected with 68.5% of the vote in Texas. He supports a limited voucher plan for low-income students in failing schools. Also, the position of Lieutenant Governor, which carries significant weight in Texas, was won by Mr. Rick Perry with 51% of the vote. Mr. Perry is an ardent supporter of school choice.
Wisconsin – Gov. Tommy Thompson, under whose care the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was expanded in 1995, won reelection with 59.7% of the vote. See Wisconsin below for more discussion on 1998 election results.
OTHER STATE NEWS
FLORIDA
A bipartisan
group of legislators, Floridians for School Choice, has promised to deliver
school choice to Florida’s parents next year. The group has outlined
a list of ten guiding principles for choice legislation to be used during
the next session. It is currently working on lining up support in
both houses of the legislature. So far the group has commitments
from Reps. Beryl Roberts-Burke, Carlos Lacasa, and Steve Wise. The
group makes a special point of indicating that new school choice legislation
should impose no regulations on private schools or impede with their missions
in any way. The work of this group and all school choice supporters
will clearly be facilitated by the election of Gov. Jeb Bush, who has voiced
support for school choice. Floridians for School Choice can be found
on the world wide web at: “http://www.floridians.org”. (Miami Herald, 10/08/98)
IDAHO
A newly organized
group of citizens — Idahoans for Tax Reform — have designed a School Choice
Tax Credit pilot program that will be introduced in the legislature’s upcoming
session by Rep. Lenore Barrett. Under this proposal individuals or
corporations will be allowed dollar for dollar tax credits for money donated
toward a child’s education in a private or home school. The program
would be phased in over a five year period. The proposal has been
endorsed by Idaho’s newly elected governor, Dirk Kempthorne. For
more information contact Mr. Laird Maxwell, Chariman of Idahoans for Tax
Reform: 1608 Bedford Dr., Boise, ID 83705; Phone: 208-331-1996; Fax: 208-384-1998;
E-mail: lmaxwell@rmci.net. (Press release from the office of School Choice
YES!, 10/21/98)
PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia’s
City-Wide African-American Grassroots Coalition for School Choice has collected
20,000 signatures from city residents who support tuition vouchers.
The group aims to collect up to 30,000 more signatures by the end of the
year. The spokesman for the group, Walter Palmer, says that they
then plan to submit their petitions to 13 city legislators in order to
demonstrate how strongly African Americans support school choice in the
area. Most of the legislators who will be receiving the petitions
have opposed school choice, according to Palmer. This, he says, will
dispel any myths about what African Americans want with regard to school
choice. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/06/98)
- On October 14
Delaware County Judge Joseph F. Battle struck down the Southeast Delco
School District’s school choice plan, which it had unanimously approved
for its students on march 18. The board may choose to appeal the
decision, but most legislators in the state have agreed that the only way
tuition vouchers will be allowed in Pennsylvania would be through a new
state law. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/16/98)
WISCONSIN
Republicans
lost control of the State Senate in this month’s elections. The 1994
elections were notable particularly because they produced Republican majorities
in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature. Thus constituted, the
legislature approved the 1995 expansion of the Milwaukee Parental Choice
Program. A loss has therefore occurred in the Wisconsin legislature.
Still, in the process of achieving the 1995 expansion, on a crucial vote
four Democratic Senators “crossed the aisle,” helping achieve victory for
parental freedom. So this year’s elections do not necessarily prevent
school choice legislation from being considered in a serious manner.
The above news,
however, pales in comparison to the news which was broadcast across the
nation last week regarding the legal status of the Milwaukee Parental Choice
Program (MPCP). On November 9 the U.S. Supreme Court, on a vote of
8-1, refused to review the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s June 10 ruling on
the constitutionality of MPCP’s 1995 expansion, which approved the participation
of religious schools in the program. Since the high court did not
find legal cause to intervene in the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision,
the local court’s decision stands as the most definitive statement to date
on the constitutionality of school choice. If the U.S. Supreme Court
strikes down a school choice program from some other state in the future,
then the June 10 decision may be susceptible to further review. Meanwhile,
the expanded program will continue to operate. From a political perspective,
it is also reasonable to assume that other school choice programs in the
country will stand a better chance against U.S. Supreme Court review to
the extent that they imitate the basic features of the Milwaukee Parental
Choice Program. Most importantly, the parents of Milwaukee and Wisconsin
can take comfort: the victory which was handed to them by the Wisconsin
Supreme Court on June 10 continues to stand.
Even if readers agree with all that I have said to this point, we still confront Lenin's classic question: What Is To Be Done? A few suggestions follow.
All the ideas and concepts, both strategic and tactical, must be given political form. EFM's tenacity, we have seen, comes not from intellectual strength nor interior integrity. It comes from social inertia used effectively via the political iron triangle, judicial review, and popular manipulation. To overcome it calls for the creation of a new political agenda, formation of new political will, and the provision of new motives and incentives for American politicians. Part of this involves just making the idea of basic funding change increasingly credible and legitimate. Great strides have been made in making the idea of parents over monopoly a credible idea. The public is substantially there already, as can be seen clearly by anyone who inspects the files on school choice in public opinion polls. The evidence of public support is overwhelming, and the trend is extremely powerful. But so-called opinion-shapers and political leaders, tied to educational finance monopoly (EFM), lag. The process of blowing away smoke screens is underway, but needs forceful prosecution in the future. One of the more devilish smoke screens is the persistent allegation that parental freedom in education is "experimental," and hence innately "risky" if not "dangerous." And one of the most effective ways to legitimize and make credible the concept of school choice is to attack and destroy the presumption of "experimental" status for school choice programs. In Part I I noted the many senses in which true school choice achieves its objectives instantly, and does not depend on experimentation. But, in addition, getting rid of the "experimental" tag can benefit greatly from the real history of parental freedom in operation.
Those working for parental freedom in the U.S. can easily see and use the facts that belie the allegations of "merely experimental": the aforementioned and much-praised GI Bill that provided genuine choice and positively revolutionized American higher education; the other federal college grant and loan programs that provide at least a modicum of freedom; the nearly-universal state-level tuition grant programs that, though always under-funded, help sustain choice among colleges; the five U.S. state-level breakouts alluded to above, working (except in Arizona where still court-impeded) exactly as ordered; the many pre-school voucher programs that are prospering across the land; the incredible history of American Catholic schools which, during most of their lives, were just a church- and nun- produced "private choice program without financial penalty" for American Catholics; and the entirely admirable reality of true school choice in democracies around the world, standard practice, taken for granted — with Australia, Denmark, and The Netherlands, in my judgment, being probably the most useful cases for American purposes: they all approximate the North Star, they are efficient, they are educationally productive, they are analogous to and thus pertinent to various American states, and they illustrate choice's capacity to harmonize rather than exacerbate social divisions.
These large tasks can be greatly aided by state-level, sustaining organizations that can bridge between peaks and valleys, not depend on accidents, not tire as individuals can. Hope for Ohio's Children, inspired by David Brennan, is an example. However organized, since changing funding mechanisms will inevitably require political enactment, the effort will need political horses to ride. They can personalize and crystallize the effort, and can initiate the actual legislative process. We must recognize: the five recently developed snapshots were political works flowing from electoral successes. For example, Wisconsin and Ohio, the two voucher programs in being, were both direct derivatives of November 8, 1994, electoral outcomes. In the short, tortured history of liberating America's parents up to now, that date is absolutely crucial. That election broke EFM legislative control and opened serious possibilities for school reform including school choice in Wisconsin and in Ohio. What on November 7 was impossible, on November 9 was possible, even likely. In the case of Wisconsin, you had not only that particular electoral victory of November 8, 1994, but you had to have, also, two successive Supreme Court electoral victories in order to break the log-jam of judicial review in that state, and remove EFM's judicial yoke from the legislature's neck. The point is, there must always be specific effort pointed at the legislative and electoral processes.
In those states
where it is necessary to remove state-level constitutional impediments,
workers for school choice must decide early: will it be one-step:
a constitutional amendment including specific school choice forms?
Or will it be two-step: a constitutional amendment to authorize the
legislature to move on school choice, but not containing a specific form
of school choice within the constitutional amendment? The history
of one-step efforts in Colorado, California, and Oregon must give pause
to those inclined to one-step. It is always easy to criticize and
caricaturize a particular method's particular ingredients. In the
legislative arena such criticisms can be met by promises to adjust in the
days ahead, on the basis of experience. Such flexible capacity is
precluded in the case of constitutional amendments. For this reason,
some of us counsel a two-step approach, with first an amendment that simply
authorizes the legislature to act. But if it can be done in one-step,
great! Obviously, my purpose now is simply to point out to reformers
that they must confront that issue, ponder it, and not just assume the
one-step is best.
And the last
piece of advice I have to offer concerns two matters referred to above:
what I call the "natural constituencies of school choice" and the political
imperative to form powerful coalitions of those natural constituencies.
Long ago I created a pamphlet called "All Roads Lead to Educational Choice Without Financial Penalty." The point was exactly to show that there are many different motives for many different social groups that could only or best be satisfied by true school choice. These are the "natural constituencies of choice" — e.g., business interests concerned for an excellent work force, libertarians who see EFM as perhaps the most pernicious and unnecessary governmental monopoly, parents of all stripes who are distressed by their children's achievement levels, inner-city parents who see catastrophe confronting their children, parents generally who chafe against the monolithic educational forms imposed on their pluralism, Roman Catholics who see the financial vise — one jaw of rising taxes, the other of rising tuition — that has squeezed so many of their schools.
Such groups as these are the natural constituents of choice — their real, powerful needs can be satisfied by expansion of parental freedom and curtailment of monopolistic controls. The political task is to harness such constituencies, help them see how a new funding policy can help solve their problems, and help them see, also, that, though coming from different starting points, they need each other if EFM is to be overcome and social inertia lifted. Alone, none is strong enough to prevail. United, no force can stop them. What Marx would have called the vanguard — those who have seen what it takes to prevail — need above all to turn to the task of bringing these natural constituencies into politically forceful colleagueship.
Within this context, a word on the Roman Catholic constituency. It has been for the most part a weak contributor to the process of liberating America's parents, even though its own history offers a primary demonstration of the virtues of parental freedom. Its leadership has become confused, its dedication to the schools has been muted, its willingness to charge the faithful to fulfill their role as fully-empowered citizens has been questionable and inconsistent. Far from seeing clearly that the problems of Catholic schools stem preponderantly from unjust public policy (EFM), and asking its believers-as-citizens to commit to changing such policy, church leadership has been mostly content to put parental freedom in the middle of a miscellany of political desires — see, for example, their pre-election collections of political hopes, in which school choice invariably is to be found nestled among numerous other issues, effectively lost as a uniquely powerful rallying point.
There has been confusion about fundamental matters, even a willingness to blame the victims — "why won't those parents dig deeper." There has been, also, an apparent confusion about what it means to be part of a pluralistic society: those with serious beliefs in such an environment are obliged to be patches on society's quilt, not the quilt itself, and will, indeed, be unfaithful to themselves and society if they do not demand the same recognition of their interests that others expect from them. My point here: do not assume the Roman Catholic community, potentially a crucial constituency for parental freedom, has already been invoked, involved and found wanting. In fact it remains a largely unused resource, and can be a decisive one in many jurisdictions if ever awakened and organized.
Will There Be a
"Big Finish" to the "Big Picture"?
What lies ahead?
There have been genuinely important, though partial, legislative enactments
during the last four years. These have started to dismantle EFM and
empower America's parents. Each of these events was tied to effective
political and organizational work in the five jurisdictions — Arizona,
Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Political advances are occurring
elsewhere — in Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Texas, to name but a few.
In many other places, parental freedom as an alternative to EFM is taking
on increased legitimacy and credibility as a subject fit for polite company.
The June 10, 1998, Wisconsin Supreme Court decision upholding Milwaukee
Parental Choice is an exceptionally useful decision, drawing on and synthesizing
U.S. Supreme Court decisions in appealing and compelling ways that can
be applied elsewhere. More and more publications are covering school
choice or are dedicated to it, and more support organizations have been
formed to assist parental freedom advocates in all jurisdictions.
Each of these
facts adds to the momentum now supporting the struggle for parent's rights.
Such momentum is not a fixed sum, but more like Al Capp's Dogpatch Ham:
the more you use it, the more you add to it. Will the laborers in
school choice vineyards across the nation learn from all the analysis and
experience available to them, and will they tap into the momentum thus
far created, to help focus and energize their own efforts? If they
do, then there will be a "big finish" for the "big picture" of parental
freedom in American education.? n
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