Choices in Education Encouraged

It has become obvious to any impartial observer that education in this country has some serious problems. Schools seem to have drifted away from the three Rs - reading, 'writing, and 'rithmatic, and towards a bizarre brand of touchy feelyism. How students feel has become more important than whether or not they are competent in basic history or math.

It's important not to over generalize, as there are many good schools and good teachers. Unfortunately however, there are also far too many bad schools. A 1998 poll found that not one in 50 American teenagers could identify James Madison as the father of the Constitution, and more than half failed to identify the three branches of the federal government.

Part of the problem with schools is that abstract ideas like "diversity" and "self esteem" have taken priority over the basics. The largest and most powerful teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA) has exacerbated this problem. The NEA has made it almost impossible to remove bad teachers from the classroom, to the detriment of the good teachers.

Particularly tragic are those students who are trapped in failing inner city schools, like those in Washington, D.C. The Washington school system consistently ranks among the nations' worst, despite being among the nations' most well funded. You can blame whomever you want, but the fact remains that many students are trapped in this system. Why not give parents an option in where their children go to school?

While students in public schools suffer, the NEA is nowhere to be found. Instead, it passes resolutions favoring multiculturalism and feminism.

Many politicians and political leaders, including Al Gore and Jesse Jackson, send or sent their children to private schools. Why then do they deny that choice to poor families?

The answer to this question is obvious. The teacher's unions are strong opponents of vouchers because they do not want competition among schools. Why not? Because it might mean that bad teachers (who are a large due paying constituency) would probably not retain their jobs. After all, good schools and teachers would be rewarded financially, while bad schools and teachers would be punished.

But wait, you say, "What about the bad schools? Vouchers won't improve them, will they?" The answer is yes, vouchers can improve bad schools. This is evidenced in Florida, where a study by Harvard's Program and Education Policy and Governance found, "schools receiving a failing grade from the state in 1999, and whose students have been offered tuition vouchers if they failed a second time, achieved test score gains more than twice as large as those achieved by other schools. ... Schools with failing grades that faced the prospect of vouchers exhibited especially large gains."

Voucher opponents once argued that they were unconstitutional. Unfortunately for them, the Supreme Court ruled vouchers to be constitutional recently. The logic to this argument is that government funding to private schools, which are often religious, violated the First Amendment ban on state religion. This is clearly a fallacious argument, because using this logic, one would conclude that food stamps are also unconstitutional, because a Jewish person may use them to buy Kosher food. Or that the GI Bill is unconstitutional because it may be used at a religious college.

School choice opponents have also claimed that the money parents receive from vouchers will not be enough for tuition to a private school. Again, this is not correct. Washington, D.C., spends about $10,000 per student. If a $7,500 voucher was available to parents, it would open many doors for parents. According to the Cato Institute, the average private elementary school tuition is $5,000.

Another factor is that the market will also help. If every parent were able to choose their children's school, a much larger demand for private schools would be created. New ones would be opened. These new schools would need good teachers. Thus, the best schools (and, ultimately, the best teachers) would be financially rewarded.

The Democratic Party, which purports to be the party of minorities and the poor, mystifyingly opposes vouchers. Poll after poll shows that both African Americans and Hispanics overwhelming support school choice, but Democrats turn a blind eye to this. Why? Because the NEA has been very financially generous to Democratic candidates, and the Dems can't afford to offend them, and possibly lose their money.

With the governor's office and both houses of the state legislature in the hands of Democrats, school choice probably isn't going to happen in Tennessee in the near future. Still, it is a long term goal we should all be interested in.

Giving parents a choice in where their children attend school is simply common sense. Democrats often lecture us on the virtues of being "pro-choice." Perhaps they should try being pro-choice on education.

- John Brown is a senior in political science and history at the University of Tennessee @ Knoxville. Contact him at johnnyb325@aol.com, or visit www.johnnorrisbrown.com. This column originally appeared in the February 12, 2004 edition of The Daily Beacon, available here.