Can public schools survive `choice' drive?
DATE 01/06/92
NEWSPAPER THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION NEWS
EDITION MORNING
PAGE a01
STORY LENGTH 98 INCHES
HEADLINE Can public schools survive `choice' drive?
BYLINE/CREDIT Dan Froomkin: The Orange County Register
SUBJECT TERMS OC:SCHOOLS:ELECTIONS:EDUCATION:CHANGE
Can the free market provide a better education for California's
schoolchildren than the current system? Is the public ready to
drastically alter the state's school-financing system?
Voters probably will decide one way or the other come November
because an explosive proposition is likely to be on the ballot
calling for parents to get taxpayer-funded scholarships to send
their children to private or religious schools.
Supporters say their proposed constitutional amendment is the
best and only way to give parents -- now largely helpless amid a
failed system -- the ability to say where their children should go
to school and what those schools should be like.
But its opponents call it a mean-spirited hoax that uses
high-minded language to disguise an attempt to destroy public
education, subsidize the rich and further penalize the poor.
One thing both sides agree on is that the initiative would
radically transform the educational system in California -- perhaps
making it unrecognizably different in a matter of years.
"What we need to do is basically change the system," said
industrialist Joseph Alibrandi, chairman of the initiative campaign.
"The whole concept is really wrong. ... It doesn't operate. Kids
aren't getting an education."
Alibrandi's solution is to wrest public education from stifling
bureaucratic control -- and let the market do its magic.
"Either you believe in free enterprise or you don't," he said.
But state schools chief Bill Honig views the initiative as "a
mean and malicious piece of work."
"It is a private-school-subsidy initiative," he said, with the
cost to be borne by the public schools.
Honig also says the initiative's small print includes a "poison
pill" designed to undermine Proposition 98 and bleed the public
schools dry.
"When people find out it's going to cost $5,000 to $10,000 from
public-school funding to send (one) kid to private school, they're
not going to like it," Honig said.
The initiative would give parents who pull their children out of
public school a scholarship of about $2,500 to spend on private
school. Those schools would be largely unregulated.
Public-school districts would be required to adopt
open-enrollment policies, allowing parents to choose a school for
their children regardless of where they live.
The concept of educational choice has strong allies in the Bush
administration, which has made it chief among its otherwise
unspecific educational goals.
But choice -- and especially the use of vouchers, or scholarships
-- remains highly controversial. Most legislators consider it a hot
potato. Most educators consider it a foul conservative plot.
A few states have begun experiments with limited choice within
the public schools, but none has used vouchers.
Compared with other choice proposals, the California initiative
is by far the most radical on the US agenda.
About 5 million students in California attend public school,
compared with about 500,000 in private schools.
Exclusive prep schools charge as much as $10,000 a year, but
parochial and religious schools often charge less than $2,500.
Many non-public schools already are filled to capacity, however,
raising the question of how many more students could fit, even if
they could afford it.
The small group of businessmen and conservative politicians who
are behind the initiative say they already have raised enough money
to finance the petition drive to put it on the November ballot.
Its opponents, including Honig and the powerful California
Teachers Association, don't doubt it will be on the ballot. But
they vow to fight it tooth and nail.
One of the most graphic results of the initiative would be that
state money could flow to private schools that many people would
consider disreputable -- schools run by fanatical religious groups
or by ruthless entrepreneurs.
People on both sides of the issue acknowledge that possibility.
"I think that's a risk you're going to have to take," said
Stephen Guffanti, a director of the Excellence through Choice in
Education League, or EXCEL, the umbrella group that is pushing the
measure.
"Yes, I'm sure that there will be parents who send their kids to
a school where they learn absolutely nothing and are very happy
about it. My response to that is I think it'll be a massive
improvement over what's going on now."
In short, to supporters of the initiative, the system can only
get better.
But the way opponents see it, this particular cure would be far
worse than the disease.
Sheila Benecke, Orange County PTA president, said supporters of
the initiative are "being a little too cavalier" when they talk
about taking risks.
"No one wants to take a chance with children," she said.
Honig is furious that there are so few safeguards in the
initiative.
"There are no standards for curriculum or performance. You could
have a Marxist school teaching that America's terrible and
capitalism stinks.
"You could have schools that don't teach any math or science.
You could teach creationism for science."
Some of California's largely unregulated private schools are
doing things like that already -- but not with public money, Honig
noted.
"If you're going to pour public money into it, you should have
public accountability," he said.
Another major difference between the two sides is their view of
the free-enterprise system.
Supporters see supply and demand as the most responsive
mechanism for producing the greatest number of high-quality
schools. Bad schools, no longer propped up by bureaucracy, they
say, will wither and die -- and be replaced by better schools.
But opponents say unregulated free enterprise is too cruel for
small children. While the schools wither, some students still will
be there. And if schools fail in midyear, where will students go?
EXCEL's Guffanti said the group considers minority parents to be
potentially the strongest supporters of choice and vouchers,
"because minorities have not been served well in the public-school
system and they know it."
But opponents believe minority students, limited-English
speakers and special-education students would be left in
underfunded public schools while students who are "easier to teach"
would be skimmed off by entrepreneurs.
Honig said the biggest winners would be parents who already are
sending their children to private school -- while the vast majority
of students, who would inevitably remain in public schools, would
be the biggest losers.
But Gary Huckaby, a consultant on the initiative campaign, said
that's dead wrong.
"The other side is maintaining that this will benefit the
wealthy only," he said. "The only people who have choice in
California are the wealthy, and the middle-class parents who are
willing to make sacrifices. This is going to open the door for the
middle class and, particularly, poor people who now have no choice
and no escape from bad schools."
How will the battle shape up?
Supporters are sure to rally around simple and seductive
concepts -- such as choice.
"It is somewhat American, isn't it?" Guffanti said.
Opponents will have to spend a lot of time trying to convince
people that the initiative is not really about choice.
Supporters will be able to get a lot of mileage out of
criticizing today's public schools.
Opponents have a much more complicated message to get across --
that public schools face enormous challenges, that progress is slow
and that there are no easy answers to thorny socioeconomic problems.
Supporters already have proven their ability to draw huge
private donations from zealous supporters.
But opponents say they are ready to spend heavily to defeat the
initiative.
"It's going to be a huge battle," Honig said. "The way it's
drafted now, it's really do or die."
SIDEBAR
Proposed school-choice initiative at a glance
Titled "Education. Parental Choice. Scholarships" by the state
Attorney General's Office, the initiative would:
Require the state to provide annual "scholarships," or vouchers,
worth at least $2,500 per child that parents could use at private
schools. Students now in public school would be eligible for
scholarships in fall 1993. Students already in private schools
would be eligible in fall 1995.
Require public schools to honor parents' choices -- presumably by
opening enrollment at every school to students regardless of where
they live.
Ban further regulation of California's almost unregulated private
schools. However, all schools redeeming state scholarships would be
required to administer and release the results of tests measuring
academic success. Schools that discriminate or teach hatred of
people on the basis of race, ethnicity or national origin, or that
advocate unlawful behavior, would not be eligible to redeem
scholarships.
Dramatically affect school-financing guarantees established by
Proposition 98. Every $2,500 scholarship could lower funding for
public schools by $5,000 to $10,000.
Arguments
for:
The public-school system is a disaster and can only be improved by
massive structural change.
Parents are better able to make decisions for their children than
are bureaucrats in Sacramento. Bureaucrats think only about
themselves; parents are truly concerned about their children.
The initiative will give choice to poor people and the middle
class. The only people in California who now have educational
choices are the rich and the upper middle class, who can afford to
pay for private schools.
Cheap but effective private schools will spring up quickly and
efficiently to teach students who will be able to afford to leave
public schools.
The free market will let good schools survive, while bad schools --
now propped up by bureaucracy -- will die and be replaced by better
schools.
The financial provisions in the initiative will give the
Legislature more flexibility by letting it spend less money on
public schools than Proposition 98 requires.
Voices:
"The parents would never put up with this (current system). If the
parents had choice of what was going on, if they could say, `You
teach our kids or we're going to pull them out of your school,' you
would have a situation where the school districts would respond."
-- Stephen Guffanti, a director of the initiative committee
Source: The Register
Arguments
against:
The public-school system is improving and will continue to improve
through less radical changes.
Schools that receive public money must be accountable to publicly
elected school boards and the state Department of Education.
Otherwise, there is no guarantee that the curriculum and values
taught at schools that receive public money would meet basic
community standards.
The biggest winners will be parents who already send their
children to private school. They will get a $2,500 gift from the
state, at the expense of public schools. Private schools will have
limited space, so the poor will remain largely in the public
schools.
Fringe groups and ruthless entrepreneurs will open many of the new
schools, and many will be bad.
The free market is too cruel to let loose on children, who would
suffer in dying schools. Badly informed parents might choose awful
schools.
The initiative is really a plan to undercut school-finance laws
and would force the Legislature to make devastating cuts in
public-school spending.
Voices:
"It's not this innocuous, innocent bill. It is not a choice bill,
it is a subsidy bill, a voucher bill. Ninety percent of the parents
lose, 10 percent of the parents gain. These guys are after public
schools. They don't care if they do them in."
-- Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction
SIDEBAR
Vouchers draw strong reaction in county
The proposed education-voucher initiative is so controversial
that, although only a few people in Orange County are familiar with
it, those few are deeply divided.
The initiative has a strong supporter in Safi Qureshey, chief
executive officer of AST Research in Irvine.
"I'm really looking at it not as a subsidy for the rich," he
said, but as something that is "really trying to provide a choice
to the poor residents of this state. People who do not have any
choice."
Qureshey said he is concerned about the public-education system.
One reason: Some applicants at Qureshey's manufacturing facility in
Fountain Valley are failing fifth-grade and sixth-grade equivalency
exams in math.
The initiative, Qureshey said, "would allow the schools to have
much more local influence and control, as opposed to a very large
state bureaucracy in Sacramento."
The criteria for schools should not be simply that "they've
filled out the right forms," he said.
"Now, with all the regulations, what are we producing?" Qureshey
asked. "I'm willing to take some risks."
And Qureshey likes the fact that the initiative undermines
Proposition 98, the constitutional amendment that guarantees
minimum funding levels for education.
"It will force the state Legislature to rethink the priorities,"
he said.
But Orange County PTA President Sheila Benecke is as strongly
opposed to the initiative as Qureshey is supportive.
"I think it's a thinly disguised mess for public education,"
Benecke said.
The one clear effect of the initiative would be to hurt the
public schools financially, she said.
"How will dismantling it financially improve it?" she asked.
Benecke said she also finds the initiative troubling on purely
philosophical grounds.
"I have a problem as a citizen of this country seeing public
monies going to parochial schools, because I do believe in the
separation of church and state."
The appeal of choice and vouchers is clear, Benecke said.
"I think the name sounds like motherhood and apple pie," she
said. "I think we all feel that parents know what's best for the
children, so our initial reaction is (to) let the money follow the
child."
But, she said, "it sounds wonderful on the surface only. The
reality is that this is the taxpayers' money, and it is the
public-school system that is the backbone of democracy.
"The public needs to be aware of the threat that this is to
public education."
SIDEBAR
Some supporters of `choice' have doubts about initiative
Just how eagerly the more middle-of-the-road supporters of
school choice embrace a more radical initiative -- if they embrace
it at all -- remains to be seen.
John E. Chubb, an economist at the generally liberal Brookings
Institute in Washington, DC, is one of the nation's leading choice
supporters.
Nevertheless, Chubb recently avoided taking a firm stand on the
initiative -- and expressed some serious reservations.
"In the choice system that we would recommend, the state still
has the right to lay out basic objectives, basic standards," Chubb
said.
"We are not in favor of an unregulated voucher," he said. "We
think that the state has an obligation and a right to impose
certain basic standards. After all, it's paying the bill."
But Chubb scorns many of the arguments against vouchers put
forth by opponents of the initiative.
"You've got to compare markets to the alternative; you can't
compare markets to some ideal system," he said.
"It's obvious that the political process is capable of producing
and sustaining, year in and year out, schools that are deplorably
bad. Won't some bad schools make it in the marketplace? Well, I
suppose some will. But our judgment is, there will be far fewer bad
ones than you get in the political process."