Last month, State Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse of Manhattan declared our state's method of financing public schools illegal because it deprived New York City students of the "sound basic education" guaranteed by our State Constitution. The judges' decision is now being appealed to the Appellate Division of our state courts.
What the Governor, the Legislature or the courts will ultimately decide about what almost everyone agrees is a flawed school aid formula remains to be seen.
I would suggest, however, that the court finding about the need for a reassessment of our state school aid formula would be an excellent opportunity to look afresh at school vouchers as part of the solution to ensure better education for all New Yorkers, especially economically deprived students in our urban settings.
Hot topic
"Vouchers!" one might cry. "Raising the specter of such a solution at this time is like throwing gasoline on a smoldering blaze."
The V-word has been and continues to be a lightening rod in education circles. Indeed, this past fall, voters in both California and Michigan dealt a resounding defeat to school voucher initiatives, the tenth time in recent years voucher initiatives have been spurned by leery voters.
Furthermore, the Federal Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit recently rejected a program in Cleveland, Ohio, in which tax-supported vouchers were being used to allow inner-city students to matriculate in parochial and other non-public schools.
Why vouchers?
In the face of those defeats, why would this be an appropriate time to introduce a voucher proposal into the debate? Several reasons come to mind:
1. Vouchers work. For example, a recent two-year study of a voucher program aimed at aiding children from poor families in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Dayton, Ohio, conducted by a team from Harvard, the University of Wisconsin and Georgetown University, showed that the academic performance of Afro-American students who used vouchers to switch from public to private schools improved significantly. This study reinforces the growing body of data which shows that vouchers are a proven way to help poor and minority students to improve scholastically.
2. Blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups (the very people most affected by the school aid formula declared unconstitutional by Judge DeGrasse) favor school vouchers for their children. A Gallup Poll conducted a few years ago showed that 72 percent of Black respondents and 65 percent of Hispanic respondents expressed support for vouchers. They are tired of seeing their children fail in poorly performing public schools and want the option for choice in education that their limited income often does not permit.
3. The fledgling charter school movement in New York State is designed to provide school choice, especially for students from inner-city neighborhoods matriculating in poorly performing schools. However, these charter schools have yet to prove themselves and, as we have seen locally, are often initiated on a trial-and-error basis.
Yet in our Catholic schools, we have a time-tested and track-proven vehicle for educating students of diverse racial, ethnic, socio-economic and religious backgrounds. In trying to improve education for inner-city youngsters, why not tap into the invaluable expertise and well established success of our Catholic schools?
Students will receive not only the academic background to achieve well but also the discipline, safety, caring environment, and moral and spiritual values that are so essential for a well-rounded education.
In addition, allowing Catholic and other non-public schools to participate in a parental choice program would save tax dollars. Since the average annual spending per pupil in public schools is approximately $10,000 and the average spending per pupil in Catholic schools is approximately $3,200, taxpayers would see immediate tax relief.
Moreover, because only a portion of what is currently spent on a public school pupil would follow the pupil, expenditures per pupil would increase for those pupils remaining in the public school. Student/teacher and student/resource ratios would likewise improve.
Further, it makes no sense to construct new public schools or charter schools in urban neighborhoods when other neighborhood schools have empty seats -- seats many parents would love their children to fill.
I would also note that, with the charter school movement, we now have tax-supported schools that are quite independent from local school boards. Hence, must we continue to assume that only publicly controlled schools can be publicly funded?
As America magazine notes in an editorial (Nov. 4, 2000): "In Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Italy and even Australia, which has no establishment clause like that of our United States Constitution's First Amendment, both public and private schools are supported governmentally. This gives all families a choice among schools that are larger or smaller, religious or secular, innovative or traditional."
4. Our new president, George W. Bush, ran on a platform favoring vouchers, especially for youngsters from poorly performing schools, and has appointed as Secretary of Education Roderick Paige, the former Superintendent of Schools in Houston, Texas, who in his confirmation hearings affirmed that he shares President Bush's vision about school vouchers.
This provides the national leadership, resources and bully pulpit to help educate the American public to the value and advantages of school vouchers, something which many experts believe were missing in the ofttimes underfunded state initiatives to pass school vouchers.
5. There is some rethinking about vouchers even among traditional opponents. Robert Reich, the Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration and staunch supporter of organized labor, penned an article last year for The Wall Street Journal in which, almost in anticipation of Judge DeGrasse's decision, he called for scrapping the current system of school financing and for creating a pool of tax revenues, which would be given directly to parents in the form of progressive vouchers pegged to family income.
So far, Mr. Reich has not been excommunicated from the Democratic Party or stripped of his position as a professor at Brandeis University. As reported in The New York Times (Sept. 8, 2000), Reich says, "I've been very surprised by the reaction....There have been several hundred phone and e-mail messages and not a single one has been negative. People who are quite liberal Democrats say they like the idea because it deals with the central inequity of education, which is that less money is spent per pupil in poor communities than in rich communities." (Maybe Senator Joseph Lieberman could revert to his pre-Vice Presidential nomination posture and join Mr. Reich in forging a bipartisan coalition to support school vouchers.)
6. The decision of the Federal Appeals Court rejecting the Cleveland voucher plan is almost certain to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Many court watchers believe that this review will receive a friendly hearing from the justices. Such a review could set aside the alleged constitutional barriers that heretofore have thwarted voucher advocates, and provide governors, mayors and legislators with clearer guidelines for what is or is not permissible in adopting voucher plans.
What lies ahead
Do I really believe that the court decision to review the school aid formula in New York State will be the occasion to consider vouchers or other choice mechanisms as at least part of the solution to address, in a more equitable and effective way, the educational needs of low income students in the Big Apple and elsewhere in our Empire State? Quite honestly, no.
The pressure of organized groups like the teachers' unions and school board associations, the confusion about the constitutionality of government-sponsored aid to non-public schools and the lack of knowledge within the public at large about vouchers militate against this solution.
However, should this happen? The answer is a resounding yes for all of the reasons already cited and many more that could be mentioned.
Therefore, despite the odds against school vouchers or other choice mechanisms being factored into the pursuit to rectify New York's school aid formula, I would strongly encourage our Governor and members of the Legislature to do so. Such an approach would be a win for students, a win for parents, a win for the taxpayers and a win for all New Yorkers.