NOT IN MY SCHOOL YARD

School Vouchers and Suburbanites (Frederick M. Hess, American Enterprise)

Proponents of school choice today find themselves in much the same position that the social-engineering Left inhabited after LBJ's sweep a generation ago. Their ideas are ascendant, they stand on the side of social justice, they have strong allies and spokespersons, and are winning prominent legal battles. Yet amidst the fruits of victory, something is missing: full approval from the mass of the American middle class.

Like the architects of LBJ's Great Society, voucherites express puzzlement as to why many suburbanites don't share their enthusiasm for school choice. Increasingly, I find myself in education reform meetings where voucher advocates end up quietly berating white suburban families for showing insufficient regard for the education of disadvantaged urban children. Conservative school choice proponents nod along as compelling advocates for the urban underclass--like Howard Fuller, Robert Aguirre, and Floyd Flake--voice frustration that suburban whites have not fully embraced choice as a way to free minority children from failed urban schools.

That's no way to win a policy fight. Thirty years ago, the Great Society's champions berated and nagged middle-class America smack into the arms of the opposition. Enthralled by their own virtue and the elegance of their domestic policy prescriptions, Great Society liberals forgot about simple democratic notions like self-interest, concern about unintended consequences, and the public's natural risk aversion. They tried to guilt-trip the public into supporting their bold reforms. But showing the caution and good sense typical of a democratic majority, voters eventually opted for Republicans and moderate Democrats who were less likely to belittle their reservations.

Conservative advocates for school vouchers risk repeating this mistake. The dominant wings of the voucher movement are free-marketers on the one hand, and urban minorities tired of waiting for public school improvement on the other. The result has been a sometimes awkward marriage that has permitted conservatives to claim the potent language of civil rights, and tempted Republicans into believing they could make political inroads with black and Latino voters.

What these advocates have overlooked is the resistance to vouchers and other choice plans among suburban homeowners. While vouchers routinely win the support of 70 percent or more of urban populations, support levels are barely half that in the suburbs, even in favorably worded polls. This resistance has made voucher proponents increasingly frustrated. Are suburbanites just too naive and timid to see the problems with today's inefficient school monopolies? Or do they not care about issues of equity and equal opportunity?

It's time for choice proponents to recognize that suburban resistance to school choice is entirely rational, based largely on self-interest, and unlikely to go away. Otherwise the political clumsiness of voucherites could eventually create an unfortunate suburban backlash against school choice--in much the same way that ramrodding the Great Society programs through did in the late 1970s.

A number of folks wrote to quarrel with the assertion that the main stumbling block to school choice, at least on the Right, is the fear of Republican legislators that their white constituents don't want inner-city black kids being brought into their kids' schools. Here are a bunch of stories about the phenomenon, which is not particularly a matter of dispute. Please note that our assertion is not an accusation of racism per se: it is entirely reasonable to want to defend the quality of your own child's school and to be worried that an influx of undereducated poor kids will have a negative impact. Their race, though a factor at some level, is to a greater degree incidental.

The broader point remains though: if widespread voucherization of public schools does not become a reality it will not be because of liberal teachers' unions, but because of mainstream Republicans.

MORE:
-School Choice Plans Need Suburbs (Case Western Reserve, 7/10/02)
-The Political Economy of School Choice (James E. Ryan and Michael Heise, Yale Law Journal)

This Article examines the political economy of school choice and focuses on the role of suburbanites. This group has received little attention in the commentary but is probably the most important and powerful stakeholder in choice debates. Suburbanites generally do not support school choice pol- icies either public or private. They are largely satisfied with the schools in their neighborhoods and want to protect the physical and financial independence of those schools, as well as suburban property values, which are tied to the perceived quality of local schools. School choice threatens the independence of suburban schools by creating the possibility that outsiders, especially urban students, will enter suburban schools and that local funds will exit local schools.

When suburbanites face threats to their schools, they fight back, and they usually win. As this Article documents, sub- urbanites succeeded in insulating their schools from prior education reforms, including efforts to integrate schools and alter school funding regimes. A similar pattern is emerging in school choice plans, almost all of which work to protect the physical and financial autonomy of suburban schools and residents. If this pattern continues, school choice plans will be geographically constrained, will tend to be intradistrict, and will exist primarily in urban districts. These constraints will limit the ability of school choice to stimulate student academic improvement, racial and socioeconomic integration, and productive competition among public schools. Simply put, limited school choice plans will have limited impact, so that school choice will be neither a panacea, as its proponents argue, nor a serious threat to traditional public schools, as its opponents contend. To achieve the full theoretical benefits of school choice, we suggest that the choices offered to students must be broadened, especially in ways that will pro- vide greater opportunities for socioeconomic integration. In the final Part of the Article we consider ways to do so, including through increased access to government-funded, though not necessarily government-operated, preschools.

-The Influence of Race in School Finance Reform (JAMES E. RYAN, June 1999, University of Virginia Law School, Legal Studies Working Paper)

Abstract:
There is some evidence, from past social science studies, that school finance reform is seen by citizens--and especially white parents--through a racial lens. This Article picks up that point--which is nothing more than a hint, really--and tries to explore the role of race in school finance reform by surveying the history and success of minority districts in school finance reform litigation. The Article examines how predominantly minority districts have fared in school finance litigation (and subsequent legislative reforms) as compared to predominantly white districts, and concludes that minority districts fare worse than their white counterparts both in court and before the legislature. Based on this and other evidence, this Article contends that there are strong reasons to believe that the racial composition of the school district plays an influential role in determining success or failure in school finance litigation and legislative reform.

As the Article explains, this evidence has important academic, historical, and practical implications. Indeed, if the Article is correct in asserting that race plays an influential role in school finance reform, school finance scholars and practitioners should begin paying closer attention than they have to the dynamics of race relations and school desegregation; historians and legal scholars should recognize with added confidence the wisdom of the NAACP's desegregation strategy; and civil rights attorneys, courts, critical race theorists, and conservative critcs of desegregation should hesitate before abandoning the goal of desegregation.

-School Data and Suburban Power (David A DeSchryver, October 9, 2002, The Doyle Report)

In "The Political Economy of School Choice," James Ryan and Michael Heise make a compelling argument that suburbs have little tolerance for anything that impinges on their safe haven. Through white-flight and bright-flight they chose to live in the suburbs and send their children to better public schools. They are not about to relinquish the advantage and, under the law, they cannot be forced to take part in another district's school choice program. It's each district for itself. "Suburbanites, by and large, are not wild about school choice, either public or private. Suburban parents are generally satisfied with the public schools their children attend, and they want to protect both the physical and the financial sanctity of these schools." It is a position, say the authors, that contributed to the failure of school finance litigation which sought to shift education dollars away from the local tax base to a uniform system of allocation; and it will likely make school choice little more than a passing trend. Pockets of intra-district choice may appear, but the movement will remain isolated and do nothing to encourage soci-economic mixing and inter-district choice programs.

Ryan and Heise make another insightful political observation that could prove quite important. There are gaps between the leadership and the core constituents of the Democratic and Republican parties on the matter of school choice. The leadership of the Democratic Party remains opposed to school choice while African Americans, especially the younger generations, consistently express strong support for vouchers. Republican leaders support more competition in public education and more school choice, but white collar suburb constituents tend to oppose the idea. It is classic "not in my backyard" (NIMBY), to be sure. It appears to be an incongruity, say the authors, that will not soon go away and that comports with the idea that "crisis exists in the cities but not in the suburbs and that some efforts should be made to address those crises, provided that doing so does not simultaneously threaten suburban school autonomy."

Best Chances for Vouchers Lie in the Cities (ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS, 6/29/03)

In New York, as in other states, Republican voters are concentrated in the suburbs. Although vouchers have been a bedrock conservative issue, suburban voters support their public schools, and Republican candidates may find support for vouchers politically risky.

"I think it's ripe if you have that minority voice come forward in New York," said Joseph P. Viteritti, director of the program on education and civil society at New York University. "It's going to emerge from the cities, not the suburbs, and it has to be a Democratic issue, not a Republican issue."

In Cleveland and Milwaukee, which have voucher programs, a similar dynamic has been at work. In both cities, the impetus for vouchers came from urban minority communities.

In Milwaukee, the fight for school vouchers was led by Polly Williams, a black single mother forced by unemployment to go temporarily on welfare. Drawn into politics by her unwillingness to have her child bused to a school outside her neighborhood, she was elected to the Wisconsin Assembly from the predominantly black Near North district of Milwaukee.

In Cleveland, one of the leaders of the voucher movement was Fannie Lewis, also the black mother of a school-age child, who was elected to the City Council from the low-income community of Hough.

-School Vouchers Urged For Minorities (Anjetta McQueen, August 24, 2000, AP)

Virginia Walden-Ford grew up a true believer in public schools. Her father was a top administrator in the District of Columbia school system and her sisters taught there.

But she now thinks blacks should get government financial aid to attend private schools. On Thursday, she joined a group of black parents, educators, pastors and politicians to launch an ad campaign for the idea that's been championed by Republican presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush. [...]

Critics have little to worry about, said David Bositis, an expert on black voting patterns with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington.

"The Republican Party is not viewed by African Americans as a viable alternative, and vouchers are not going to change that," he said.

Even if more blacks do support voucher initiatives, that wouldn't be enough to get them enacted, he said. "Look at who will vote against it ... senior citizens, white suburbanites and the teachers unions. That's a winning combination."

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 31, 2003 8:25 AM