FROM THE NIMBY FILES :

Another Look at How Members of Congress Exercise School Choice (Jennifer Garrett, 5/22/02, Heritage Foundation)

Despite the President's strong support for school choice, many Members of Congress effectively deny poor school children the educational opportunities their own children enjoy. Of the high percentage of Members who now send or at any time have sent a child to private school, many continually vote against legislation that would enable parents of poor children trapped in failing or unsafe public schools to exercise the same choice. Many, such as Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), whose daughter Chelsea had attended an elite secondary private school in Washington, D.C., argue that giving vouchers to disadvantaged children to attend a school of choice would undermine public schools. Two of the Senate's wealthiest members, Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and John D. Rockefeller(D-WV), voted against school choice but provided their own children with a private education. Such rhetoric is common on Capitol Hill.

House Amendment 57 to the No Child Left Behind Act (H.R. 1) proposed by Representative Richard Armey (R-TX), which would have allowed children in low-performing and dangerous schools to attend a school of choice, was defeated by a vote of 155-273 on May 23, 2001. Of the 273 Members who voted against the amendment, 69 had sent or were sending at least one child to private school. Had these Members voted for the amendment instead, it would have passed by a vote of 224-204.

House Amendment 58 to H.R. 1, also proposed by Representative Armey, would have authorized up to five school choice research demonstration projects to evaluate the impact of school choice on the academic achievement of disadvantaged students. This amendment also was defeated on May 23, 2001, by a vote of 186-241. In this case, 58 of the 241 Members who voted against it had exercised private school choice for their own children. Had they voted for choice instead, the amendment would have passed by a vote of 244-183.

Senate Amendment 536, an amendment to the Better Education for Students and Teachers Act (S. 1) proposed by Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) to fund a low-income school choice demonstration program, failed by a vote of 41-58 on June 12, 2001. At that time, 13 of the Senators who voted against the amendment had sent or were sending their children to private school. Had they voted to provide the same option to low-income families who needed that choice the most, the amendment would have passed by a vote of 54-45.

The failure to approve measures to enable all children to benefit from the best school environment possible makes less and less political sense, especially in light of growing public support for school choice among Americans, particularly parents and minorities.

Expressing high moral dudgeon about hypocrisy is always fun, but it's pretty unrealistic to expect Democrats to offend their most important constituency--in financial terms--the teachers who are part of Big Labor. If you like at these numbers though there's something very revealing about them : Republicans are the problem. For a measure to fail in the House, Republicans have to vote against it and if 59 senators voted against Judd Gregg's amendment, at least seven of them must have been from the GOP. The very ugly fact of the matter is that the opposition of moderate Republicans to school choice is a result of racism--not necessarily their own, but that of their constituencies.

Opinion polling has consistently shown that while white liberals strongly oppose school choice, blacks and conservatives (especially Christian conservatives) strongly support it--blacks because they want to get their kids out of failing schools, Christian conservatives because they'd like the option of sending their kids to religious schools or of home-schooling them. The swing vote, as always, is that great mass of suburbanites (Soccer Moms or what have you). They tend to already have decent schools, want to keep their kids in public schools and they don't want those schools being "wrecked" by an influx of "inner-city" kids. So Republicans from swing districts and States are unwilling to stick their necks out on an issue of Republican orthodoxy if its going to get them in trouble back home.

Democrats richly deserve blame for being in thrall to the unions on this issue, but Republicans (at least some Republicans) should be held to account too. And the unassailable white middle class deserves our opprobrium. In the long run we'll all pay the price if we keep another generation (or two or three) of poor black kids trapped in schools where they don't learn. Shame on us.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 26, 2002 3:25 PM