OPPORTUNITY KNOCKING :

School Choice Legislation Introduced In House (Jim Burns, June 28, 2002, CNSNews.com)

Capitalizing on Thursday's Supreme Court decision in favor of school vouchers, House Republican Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) introduced legislation to provide education scholarships to disadvantaged children in the nation's capital. [...]

The bill would provide families with incomes below the poverty line, scholarships of up to $5,000. Students with family incomes up to 185 percent of the poverty level, which Armey says is at $33,226, may receive up to $3,750 in tuition assistance.

Two points : (1) pick up your paper and look at the story about this Court decision and what's the thing that leaps out at you? For all the talk about how this is just GOP union-busting or religious groups sneaking into the public trough, the picture that accompanies the story will be of black women hugging each other and rejoicing because their kids will get to continue to go to decent schools.

(2) Suppose you just disband the Education department and every education program in the federal government and give every school age kid in America a voucher for $5000. Let them give it to any school or teacher they choose. If states or cities or whoever wants to supplement this amount, that's fine. But assume they each have "just" $5000.

Now consider this. In the case that was before the Court the kids are being educated at parochial schools for less than $2500 a year. So this amount seems ample to secure a decent education. Further, the average teacher salary in America for the 2001-2 school year was a little under $45k. A teacher could take on just 9 students and match their current salary. It'd be class size reduction on a monumental scale. These are just a couple of the choices that such vouchers would provide.

Okay, so take a wild guess at what Washington DC actually spends per pupil right now (actually in 2000-1)? How about : $12,345! Let the District voucherize some of what they're spending and a teacher could take on just four or five students and make what they are now.

Besides all the other benefits that would flow from bringing market forces to bear on the system, just imagine the retirees (military guys, former teachers, business people--with a wealth of experience and a lifetime of learning to share) who could supplement their income by taking on one or a few kids.

There are just so many exciting possibilities in all this it would be a real shame not to experiment with the idea of school choice.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 28, 2002 7:06 PM