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- Contents:
IN THIS REPORT
Readers will find a large list of exciting parental
freedom developments from across the country; mention of two very significant,
recently-released studies; the Editor’s Comment on Walter Annenberg’s Gift
to the Public Schools; and the Editor’s View on the Role of Personality
in Choice Programs.
ALASKA
State Representative Vic Kohring introduced a voucher
proposal last month — Sponsor Substitute for House Bill No. 5. This
pilot program would make vouchers available to low-income parents who home-school
their children or who send their children to private schools. Vouchers
would be equal in worth to the cost of the child’s education, or to the
amount spent per-pupil in the child’s home district, whichever is less.
If passed, the act would take effect in July and would end, if not extended
by the legislature, in the summer of 2004. (Information provided by the
office of Rep. Kohring.)
ARIZONA
On February 17 the House Education Committee approved
HB 2279, “Parental Choice Grants.” This bill, which would provide
tuition vouchers for private education to low-income parents, has the support
of the state superintendent of public instruction, Lisa Graham Keegan.
Vouchers would be worth either the cost of tuition or $5,000, whichever
is less. (Arizona Republic, 02/18/99)
CALIFORNIA
The members of an Oakland-based political action
committee, Parents Against Substandard Schools (PASS), have developed a
strategy plan for California advocates of school choice entitled “The District
Choice Initiative.” The initiative would allow citizens in failing
school districts to approve vouchers programs for their schools through
elections.
Failing districts would be defined as those in which 60% or more of the students test below the 50th percentile in reading or math (or both) on statewide examinations. Each district would pay for the cost of its own election, but the state would provide the vouchers. Any family within a voucher district would be eligible. The worth of the vouchers would equal the per-student amount each district receives for public education. (Information provided by PASS. PASS can be reached at 510-763-3615.)
FLORIDA
Governor Jeb Bush’s “A-plus” education plan, which
would provide tuition vouchers to parents in failing schools, passed special
House committee — the Select Committee on Transforming Florida Schools
— on a vote of 16-8 on March 3. The bill is clearly on a fast track,
but will receive greater opposition in the Senate, reports the Miami Herald.
The bill would authorize tuition vouchers worth about $4,000 for parents
whose children are in under-performing schools. (Miami Herald, 03/04/99)
GEORGIA
Senator Clay Land’s proposal to amend a routine
education bill so that it would include the “Early HOPE Scholarship Act”
lost by six votes last month. The act would have provided vouchers
to low-income students in failing schools for tuition costs at public or
private schools. (Atlanta Journal, 02/17/99)
IDAHO
Judge Daniel Eismann of the state district court
in Boise ruled in February against the Idaho Education Association (IEA).
The IEA had challenged a state law that requires unions to get annual consent
from their members before drawing dues from members’ paychecks for political
purposes. Legislators passed the law in 1997. (Education Week, 03/03/99)
ILLINOIS
HB 999, the Education Tax Credit Bill, has been
introduced in the House this year with the endorsement of newly-elected
Governor George Ryan. HB 999 would provide tax credits of up to $500
for parents with children in public or nonpublic schools who spend more
than $250 on book fees, lab fees, or tuition. The bill awaits action
in the Rules Committee. (Information provided by the Illinois Catholic
Conference.)
MASSACHUSETTS
Earlier this month Governor Paul Cellucci chose
Mr. James Peyser as the new chairman of the state Board of Education.
Mr. Peyser, President of the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy, strongly
favors educational freedom for parents through vouchers and charter schools.
Mr. Peyser has said that he wishes to work with the teachers unions and
education establishment, but nonetheless faulted those groups for not being
open to reforms like charter schools and school choice. (Boston Globe,
03/04/99)
- The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in December
that government officials cannot require parents engaged in home-schooling
to submit their home-school work to state inspections. This decision
is significant, especially since the Court chose to proclaim a very important
general truth in the context of this decision: It is “the basic constitutional
right of parents to direct the education of their children.” (Washington
Times, 01/24/99)
MICHIGAN
On March 5 Cardinal Adam Maida announced that the
national Children’s Scholarship Fund has set aside $5 million for students
in Detroit area to attend private schools. The money must be matched
by local donors, and Maida is leading the drive to raise the matching funds.
Grants will be for grades K-8, and they will be worth about $1,000 per
child. (Detroit News, 03/05/99)
- Michigan lawmakers are considering a plan that
would dissolve the Detroit school board and turn control of its schools
over to the office of Mayor Dennis W. Archer. The legislation, based
on a 1995 Illinois law which turned control of Chicago schools over to
Mayor Richard M. Daley, was proposed by Governor John Engler in January.
A poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press in February said that 54 percent
of Detroit residents are in favor of the legislation, while only 32 percent
were opposed. (Education Week, 03/03/99)
NEW HAMPSHIRE
School choice proponents in the New Hampshire House
have introduced HB 633, a bill which would establish a scholarship program
to assist eligible parents in paying certain expenses of primary and secondary
education. The scholarships would allow parents with children in
failing public schools to choose other public schools, private schools,
or home schooling. The bill received a March 8 hearing before the
House Education Committee.
According to this plan, failing schools are those which
score in the bottom 1/3 on a statewide basis and which do not meet New
Hampshire’s minimum educational standards. The failing public schools
would have to be located in districts whose governing bodies have voted
to authorize the scholarships for their schools. Eligible parents
could also not be earning more than 300 percent of the federal poverty
index. Scholarships would be worth $2,000 for K-8 students and $3,500
for students in grades 9-12.
The bill also stipulates that nonpublic schools would
not be required to comply with additional laws or rules as a result of
accepting scholarship students, except as specified in the bill itself.
If passed the bill would take effect 60 days after passage. The bill’s
sponsors are Reps. Rabideau, Clark, Corbin, Lawton, Hunt, and Senators
Brown, Krueger, and Roberge. (Information provided by Mrs. Judy Alger.)
NEW MEXICO
Governor Gary Johnson’s FY2000 state budget proposal
for $37.1 billion sets aside more than $18 million for the introduction
of a private-school-voucher program. The program would begin by providing
vouchers to about 100,000 low-income K-12 students in the first year, and
would eventually expand to include all students in the state. Gov.
Johnson has threatened to veto budget bills and call the legislature into
special session if the legislature does not approve his plans for tax cuts
and vouchers before the end of the regular legislative session this month.
(Education Week, 03/03/99)
- The New Mexico Federation of Catholic School Families
(NMFCSF) reports that two of the education reform bills which it supports
have been introduced in the New Mexico legislature. HB 625, a $50
tax credit for each student in a family whose income is less that $30,000
per year, was introduced on February 11. Sponsors of HB 625 include
Reps. Rick Miera and Raymond Sanchez. The bill has not been scheduled
for a hearing yet, but it has assignments in both the House Education Committee
and the House Taxation Committee.
HB 543 was introduced on February 4 by Rep. Pauline Gubbels. It would amend the Education Technology Act to allow equal funding to accredited private schools for technology expenses. Public schools currently receive $9.50 per student for technology expenses. That bill has been assigned to the House Education Committee and the House Appropriations and Finance Committee. (Information provided by NMFCSF.)
NEW YORK
At the beginning of March New York City Schools Chancellor
Rudy Crew threatened that he would resign if Mayor Rudolph Giuliani continued
to pursue a voucher plan for the city. (See Freedom Report #68.)
The two men have since then agreed to work out their differences.
Crew is still fundamentally opposed to vouchers, but is open to discussion.
He has specifically stated that he would be less opposed to a voucher plan
if City Hall ran it rather than the Board of Educaiton. Giuliani,
still strongly in favor of vouchers for New York, has said that although
the plan is very much still on his agenda, he will only push a plan that
is acceptable to Crew. (New York Times, 03/12/99)
PENNNSYLVANIA
Last month Governor Tom Ridge proposed the Educational
Opportunities Grant (EOG) pilot program in his Budget Address to the General
Assembly (see Freedom Report #68). This month Gov. Ridge proposed
a separate plan, the Academic Recovery Act, at a recent news conference.
The Academic Recovery Act would plan would establish a list of at least
eight troubled school districts in the state, including Philadelphia and
Chester.
The plan would give educators in those districts greater flexibility in their management of the districts, allowing them to create charter schools, privatize services, and hire teachers without certification. The Academic Recovery Act would also provide “supervouchers,” worth $2,000 to $4,000 each, to parents in the struggling districts, which could be used at public, private, or parochial schools. This plan would also authorize the state to take control of failing districts after declaring them “academically bankrupt.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 03/12/99)
TEXAS
State Senator Teel Bivins unveiled an experimental
voucher proposal, Senate Bill 10, that would provide private school vouchers
to an estimated 143,000 public school students in the state’s six largest
counties: Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Harris, Tarrant, and Travis. The
bill would target economically disadvantaged children who have failed any
part of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. The pilot program
would begin in the 2000-01 school year and run for five years. Vouchers
would be worth 80 percent of the state and local per-pupil allotment for
public schools. (Express-News Austin Bureau, 03/05/99)
A survey commissioned by the Texas Public Policy Foundation found that private schools in the above six counties contain over 82,000 empty seats which are waiting to be filled, should Sen. Bivins’ proposal be passed by the legislature. (San Antonio Express-News, 03/07/99)
WISCONSIN
A Washington-based anti-voucher group, People for
the American Way, opened a “voter education” hotline on March 8 that provides
information on candidates in the April 6 Milwaukee School Board race.
People for the American Way was one of the groups that legally challenged
the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). It has been working
closely with the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA) to defeat
Milwaukee’s voucher program for a number of years. Although the School
Board plays no role in the operation of the MPCP, People for the American
Way and the MTEA believe that the outcome of the race will somehow affect
the dynamics of school choice politics in the city. All MTEA candidates
oppose school choice. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 03/09/99)
NATIONAL NEWS
The Children’s Scholarship Fund announced last
month that it would be expanding nationwide. The Fund was previously
only available in selected cities across the country. Now the program’s
directors have committed another $30 million, so that any parents in the
nation with children in grades K-8 can apply. (Education Week, 02/10/99)
- A recent report by the U.S. Department of Education
stated that the problem of overcrowding in public schools in 22 urban communities
across the nation could be solved by sending about 150,000 students from
those areas to private schools. The study found that there were about
that many open seats at private schools in those 22 urban areas, where
overcrowding has become a serious problem. That kind of program would
cost the public about $4,575 per student, the study predicts. The
says that in order for the program to work at that cost, participating
private schools would have to be allowed to maintain their existing policies,
such as those over curriculum, admissions, and assessment. Moreover,
few private schools would wish to participate in a program that altered
their policies. The 168-page study is entitled, Barriers, Benefits,
and Costs of Using Private Schools to Alleviate Overcrowding in Public
Schools: Final Report. (School Reform News, 02/99)
NOTEWORTHY ITEMS
* Ohio University researchers Richard Vedder and
Joshua Hall released a study, Private Schools and Public School Performance:
Evidence from Ohio, which used school data from Ohio to argue that private
school competition improves public school performance. The study
found that when greater percentages of students in an area attend private
schools, their public school counterparts tend to perform better on examinations.
For example, increasing the percentage of private school students in a
district from 0 to 25 would raise the proportion of students passing the
4th grade proficiency test by 6 percent. (Information provided by the Buckeye
Institute for Public Policy Solutions in Ohio.)
* In January the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — the nation’s largest bipartisan membership association of state legislators — released the fifth edition of its Report Card on American Education: A State-by-State Analysis. The study grades educational progress in each state from 1976 to 1998. It is an invaluable diagnostic tool for anyone interested in the status of American education. This year’s edition concludes that there is no statistically evident correlation between educational performance and: a) expenditures per pupil and b) teacher salaries.
In 1994 Ambassador Walter Annenberg gave $500 million to American public schools, prompted by his concern for increasing crime and declining safety. The Blum Center’s founder, Quentin L. Quade, wrote an essay at that time entitled, “Is Walter Annenberg Trapped Behind Unlocked Doors?” The essay said that although Walter Annenberg’s donation was a sincere and magnificent attempt to help public education reform itself, no significant reform is possible among schools guarded by educational finance monopoly (EFM). Annenberg is one of the “good guys,” but he is trapped behind unlocked doors — self-enforced captivity to EFM.
Three years ago $53,000,000 of the Annenberg donation went toward the creation of the Los Angeles Anneberg Metropolitan Project (LAAMP), which would help reform Los Angeles County schools. The administrators of that program announced on January 27, 1999, that LAAMP has shown little or no impact on education in the Los Angeles area. “We see some promising things, but they are very few,” said Maria Casillas, President of LAAMP.
Administrators of the program had hoped that LAAMP grants would lead to substantial improvements in schools chosen to receive the grants, especially since schools were chosen largely on the basis of their enthusiasm for reform. However, today many of those 247 schools have very low levels of parental involvement and of teacher commitment. At many of the LAAMP high schools, tests scores have gotten worse since LAAMP began.
Especially in light of that news, it is particularly ridiculous that Mr. Bob Chase, President of the National Education Association (NEA), has publicly chided businessman Ted Forstmann for having established the Children’s Scholarship Fund. (USA Today editorial, 02/26/99) He criticized Forstmann, because Forstmann “won’t offer a nickel to improve public schools.” Mr. Chase believes that even a privately funded scholarship plan is a bad thing, revealing just how completely his thinking has been shaped by monopoly: nothing other than more money for public schools will help American education.
Since the public school system is protected by EFM, its fundamental problems cannot be solved in any permanent way with increased funding. School choice, on the other hand, would introduce the element of competition into those Los Angeles schools. It would empower both parents and teachers with the ability to influence productivity in their public schools. The case of LAAMP demonstrates more than ever: if you love public schools, you love parental freedom in education — the most certain way to encourage excellence in public schools.
In a February 14 article the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel named some of the Milwaukee Public Schools that have accomplished excellent goals in recent years. The author presented these examples of success as exceptions to the rule in MPS. MPS educators and administrators are struggling to “replicate” the success in a systematic way. Yet the article demonstrated pretty clearly that those examples of success were brought about by strong-willed individuals who practice independent thinking, not by any kind of formula. The author of the article used a considerable amount of space to list some of the qualities that it discovered were common to well-performing MPS schools: a stable, strong teaching staff; a strong team spirit; and strong leadership. The article quotes Milwaukee School Board member John Gardner on the subject, who said that the best schools in Milwaukee take “undogmatic” approaches to education.
There are many elements which contribute to the success or failure of an enterprise such as a school. One of the most important elements necessary for success, if not the most important element, is the presence of people with strong character — personalities who embolden those around them.
That is not to say that failing schools lack people of strong character. Some circumstances present obstacles that demand more than what strong character can accomplish by itself. Nonetheless, it would be strange to find a successful operation like a school not being led by one or more people of integrity — personalities who command respect. The greatness of any organization is always derived from the greatness of its members.
In a school choice system it is the presence of strong personalities that allows parents to choose one school over another. When parents in an authentic choice system are presented with a full range of options for the education of their children, they are able to recognize and choose successful schools because they have either experienced first-hand contact with the personalities who are responsible for success in those schools, or they have witnessed the effects of those personalities.
It is impossible for an educational bureaucracy
to systematize that kind of success. Monopoly-situations provide
little incentive for strong-willed, independent thinking. However,
when competition exists, people of character rise to the occasion.
In a choice-based educational system, parents have the capacity to choose
schools being led by people of strong character. Strong personalities
are directly rewarded for their efforts, because they have helped create
an educational environment worthy of choice.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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