Building a Competitive Education Industry
A Weekly Column by Myron Lieberman

On April 4, entrepreneur Ted Forstmann announced the formation of Parents In Charge (PIC), a parent organization that supports school choice. Ted Forstmann is one of the few leaders of the school choice movement who understands the cruciality of competition - not as a buzz word, but as an essential feature of any school choice plan with the potential to raise achievement levels and lower the costs of K-12 education. Forstmann's strategy to achieve competition in education was to create a strong demand for school choice in the inner cities, especially among low income black and Hispanic parents. If the demand was strong enough, the politicians representing these constituencies would have to support school choice in order to maintain their leadership positions - political offices might be a more accurate phrase. The one-hundred million dollars that he and John Walton pledged to contribute to scholarships for inner city pupils was part of the strategy, although it also had an independent, charitable rationale, to-wit, it was a direct benefit to tens of thousands of children from low income families. The scholarships offered a choice of school for pupils who were being forced by circumstances to attend a school that could not prevent educational retardation.

Although I did not believe that Forstmann's strategy was optimal, it was imaginative and deserved support from supporters of school choice. One of its virtues was that Forstmann did not have to rely on established organizations to implement the plan; the help that was needed could be hired. Eventually, this may have been a critical weakness since the staff, although otherwise competent did not bring any constituencies of their own to support the plan. In any case, it was really the only strategic effort in play to establish a competitive education industry, and so I did what little I could to support it.

For now at least, Forstmann and Walton appear to have abandoned the strategy underlying the Children's Scholarship Fund, the organizational vehicle for their strategy. I do not know why or when, but the fact that Gore/Lieberman ticket carried black voters by a 91 to 9 margin, suggests that the strategy was not and would not be successful. Previously, polls showed that black parents were more supportive of school choice than any other demographic group, hence there were the usual optimistic expectations that black parents would tend to support political candidates who support school choice. However, it is one thing to express a preference for school choice in a poll in which nothing is at stake and a much different thing to support pro-choice candidates in an election in which school choice is only one of several issues at stake. Democratic candidates generally support affirmative action, racial set-asides, and expanded social services. Candidates who support these positions are likely to win the black vote, even if they are opposed to school choice. Of course, there is more to it, but whatever the explanation, Parents In Charge appears to reflect a different strategy, or at least a modification in the earlier strategy.

Unfortunately, the new strategy is not likely to be successful. Of course, PIC is not necessarily inconsistent with a growing demand for school choice among minorities, who were very prominent at PIC's official launching at the National Press Club. Nevertheless, reliance on parents to provide the political leverage to effectuate school choice is a dubious strategy for these reasons:

• Parents are not an effective interest group. There is too much turnover and too many other issues to expect parents to focus on a single issue such as school choice.
• One reason school choice is needed is to give parents choices without having to go through interminable political processes that can, and usually have, ended in defeat at some stage of the process. Of course, it is probably necessary to go through these processes at some time or other to achieve school choice, but how PIC contributes to this objective is not yet clear.
• Consumer organizations have not been successful in establishing competition in industries of concern. Anti-trust laws might be considered an exception, but even if the analogy is apt, which is highly doubtful, there is a world of difference between parents and parties with a significant long range economic stake in the issue.
• There are several national parent organizations in existence. The largest, the National PTA, is dominated by the NEA, which will do its utmost to sabotage and discredit any other parent organization, especially one supportive of school choice. Given the NEA's intensive cultivation of black and Hispanic organizations, it power to block competing efforts will be formidable.
• No matter how valued the rationale for school choice, it will not materialize in the absence of an effective infrastructure. Forstmann has emphasized that PIC will not be a lobbying organization, so we do not know how it will help lead to a competitive education industry.

The foregoing analysis is not an optimistic one, but what matters is whether it is realistic. Pending additional information, I believe that the new strategy, if that's what PIC represents, has even less chance of success than the previous one; however, the good news is that Forstmann is as determined as ever to foster a competitive education industry. If he doesn't quit, he is as likely as anyone to bring it about.