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School Choice Before and After November 7
Most conservatives contend that every expansion of school
choice is a good thing for two reasons. First, at least a
few families will benefit, just as they would benefit from
additional housing or transportation options. The fact that
only a few benefit may be unfortunate, but better that a few
have additional choices than no one should have them.
The second reason is that every expansion of school
choice helps to add momentum to the school choice movement.
Every time we add to the beneficiaries of school choice, we
add to its supporters and to the number of families who will
seek it as they see others benefiting from school choice.
These are plausible positions, albeit ones that I do not
share. At least I am skeptical about them for several
reasons.
The means required to achieve the plan may be all out of
proportion to the number who will benefit.
Sometimes the plans are so limited that it is doubtful
that anyone benefits educationally. Of course, other things
being equal, it is better that families have choices than
they not have choices, but the choices may be so restricted
that they do not result in any appreciable benefit for those
who act upon them.
Choice plans can weaken instead of strengthen the
political support for expansion of school choice. In his
famous Exit, Voice and Loyalty, Albert Hirschmann pointed
out that sometimes when the activists in a movement get what
they want, they withdraw from the movement. For example, if
the denominational groups that support school choice
achieved it, would they continue to support the expansion of
school choice to for-profit schools? I doubt it very much.
Some school choice plans are so restricted that they will
show lower levels of achievement than comparable students in
public schools. They may well be more cost effective but
regrettably, media and analysts tend to focus only on the
achievement side. The academic outcome will tend to
discredit, not build support for school choice. Inasmuch as
its proponents treat all school choice plans as examples of
a growing movement, they are in a weak position to
distinguish "good" from "inadequate" school choice plans.
Those distinctions should have been drawn beforehand, so
that good school choice plans cannot be tarred with the
brush of inadequate plans. The people who actively support
only adequate plans should have said: "We don't oppose your
plan, but we don't believe it will help for reasons X, Y,
and Z. Therefore, whether it helps or hurts, the outcomes
have no bearing either way on the merits of the kind of
school choice plan we support."
If the voucher initiative in either California or
Michigan passes, my reservations about school choice
strategy will not matter. The parties who put up the funding
and their advisors will receive instantaneous national
recognition and praise. When this happens, there is a
tendency to assume that what you did was very astute, so
whatever was done in these two states is likely to be
repeated elsewhere for at least a while. The situation will
resemble an experience of mine when I was employed by the
Civil Intelligence Section in occupied Japan. Part of my
work was to interrogate Japanese generals and admirals on
what they did and why during World War II. In many
situations, I discovered that allied victories were not due
to our brilliant commanders, but to unbelievable mistakes by
the opposition. Not always, but often enough to suggest
caution in what led to success.
As anyone aware of my publications for the past twenty
years knows, I support a competitive education industry and
have always been willing to help when asked. I hope that the
initiatives in California and Michigan are successful on
November 7, but if neither succeeds, I believe that the
reasons will include failure to consider the following
issues.
First, why were these initiatives launched in the two
states in which the opposition was strongest? I doubt
whether it would be possible to identify an NEA affiliate
with the political and financial resources of the California
Teachers Association and the Michigan Education Association;
the New Jersey Education Association is the only NEA
affiliate that might be as formidable as the state
associations in California and Michigan. Perhaps the issue
was thoroughly discussed, but I have not read or seen any
evidence to this effect.
Granted, other things being equal, funders usually prefer
to support initiatives in their own state. In California and
Michigan, however, other things were not equal. For this
reason, funders interested in promoting school choice might
have been persuaded that much would be gained by launching
the initiative in states in which the prospects for success
were much better than in California and Michigan. In fact,
the resources devoted to the initiatives in each state would
have sufficed to fully fund initiatives in several smaller
states with more promising prospects. The NEA/AFT advantages
in funding and manpower would have been much less
influential in smaller states; there is only so much of this
stuff that citizens can absorb in a political campaign.
Press reports indicate that the Michigan campaign was
better prepared than the one in California; the fact that
the Catholic Church supported the Michigan initiative
whereas it did not do so in California seems to confirm this
observation. On the other hand, the California initiative
was not means tested, a fact that was expected to result in
more middle class support for the initiative.
The public school establishment has gained considerable
experience in evaluating the effectiveness of anti-voucher
arguments. One of the most effective is that voucher plans
"drain funds from public schools." The argument doesn't make
much sense, but it has been effective; this is one reason
why Vice President Gore emphasizes it. The California
initiative has been drafted to negate this objection; it
establishes a higher level of funding for public schools
than currently exists, and does so indefinitely.
This provision is questionable tactically as well as
substantively. Mandating a high level of funding for a
public service indefinitely is hardly good government
practice, but this is not my main concern about the
provision. It would have been far more effective to provide
benefits for specific groups of teachers. For example,
consider teachers near retirement. These teachers typically
exercise the most influence in the teacher unions; a good
retirement sweetener for these teachers would cost only
petty cash in the scheme of things, but would be a
persuasive reason to support the initiative, regardless of
what the unions want these teachers to do. The youngest
teachers are not likely to be very concerned about the
alleged drain of resources. Many are not sure about how long
they wish to teach, and some may see just as bright a future
in a private school as in a public school. The bottom line
is that the initiative was drafted to counter a union
argument directed at voters generally; it failed to take
into account the importance of providing any teachers in
service strong reason to support the initiative.
The worst outcome of losses in California and Michigan
would be to encourage defeatist thinking about school
choice. The teacher unions and their allies have an enormous
strategic advantage in opposing voucher initiatives. They
have a simple, easily understood objective -- defeat voucher
initiatives everywhere they show up. Also, the teacher
unions can shift resources to whatever states are in the
greatest need. In contrast, voucher proponents have
different objectives and different levels of resistance to
anti-voucher campaigns, whether by initiative or in the
legislatures. To overcome these strategic union advantages,
voucher proponents will have to demonstrate a higher level
of internal analysis and criticism than they have shown to
date. Nothing would please me more than to be mistaken about
this, but I fear, as Yogi Berra once said, "It's deja vu all
over again."
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Building a Competitive Education Industry
