January 14, 2008
SADLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH DEMOCRACY:
A School-Vouchers Democrat (Bill Steigerwald, 1/14/08, FrontPageMagazine.com)
One of several things Democrat John O. Norquist became famous for during his four terms as mayor of Milwaukee was his enthusiastic implementation of a school-voucher system for his city. The popularity of the school-choice program, which started in 1991 with 1,500 students and now serves more than 12,000 of the city's roughly 110,000 students, has helped to reverse Milwaukee’s population decline, Norquist says. It has lured new residents to the city of 602,000 and it has kept many families from leaving for the suburbs when their kids hit school age. Norquist is currently the president of the Congress for the New Urbanism in Chicago, where he was Thursday, January 10, when I spoke with him by telephone. [...]Q: How does the voucher system in Milwaukee work?
A: With school choice there are all kinds of options under Milwaukee’s system. You’ve got the public schools. Regardless of race, you can send your kids to schools in the suburbs and still live in the city. You can send your kids to a voucher-supported private school, to a chartered private school. There are all kinds of options. Milwaukee’s become a place with a variety of choices. The perception is that there are enough positive choices that you don’t automatically decide to leave the city when you have school-age kids.
Q: How much money do students get in their voucher?
A: They get about the same as the state school-aid amount -- roughly about $8,000.
It is the prospect of inner city black kids moving into suburban white schools that prevents a universal voucher program. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 14, 2008 6:19 AM
I met Norquist a few weeks ago at a school choice event in Chicago.
He like my "there is no intellectually sound argument against fully funded school choice" meme.
Wanting to keep out "black kids" is no less racist than the anti-immigration "wahoos."
It is a stupid argument as well, given that rapid introduction of fully-funded vouchers would improve local city schools so rapidly, that the need to send your kids to get brainwashed by the doped-white-mice culture of the suburbs wouldn't even seem that attractive once the city kids start learning something.
Posted by: Bruno at January 14, 2008 10:02 AMArgument? It's a Whip count.
Posted by: oj at January 14, 2008 11:33 AMIt's not a argument at all. It's simply a slur. All of the mainstream opposition to vouchers comes from the people who will most likely suffer from their introduction - teacher unions, and those who benefit from their support. It's a matter of self-interest.
Posted by: Brandon at January 14, 2008 4:28 PMYes, it's only the votes against them that come from the representatives of the white suburbs. That too is self-interest.
Posted by: oj at January 14, 2008 7:19 PMSelf-interest, yes, but not necessarily racism. If your house is worth an extra $150k because it has "good public schools," breaking the link between housing and schools is against self-interest.
Megan McArdle has made comments about those suburban parents who refuse to admit that their "public" schools have tuition too, just tuition that comes with granite countertops.
Posted by: John Thacker at January 14, 2008 8:01 PMYes, it is in a luncheonette owner's self-interest not to seat blacks if it would drive white customers away. But it is necessarily racist.
Posted by: oj at January 14, 2008 11:34 PMTouché oj.
Posted by: erp at January 15, 2008 10:06 AM