Parental Choice in Education: An Irresistible Tide

For the first time in its history, a majority of respondents to the Gallup Poll have said that they support allowing parents to send their children to independent schools, including parochial schools, at taxpayer expense.

Gallup has been polling on education issues since 1974. Only two years ago support for private or parochial school choice was 43%. In last month's nationwide poll, support had increased to 51%, while opposition had dropped to 45%.

More ominously for those opposed to parental choice (mainly the teacher unions and the public school establishment), support among blacks and other minorities rose to 68%.

Interestingly, respondents identifying themselves as Democrats registered 51% support for vouchers and 61% for tax credits. Republicans were evenly split on vouchers (47 to 48%) but favored tax credits by 57%.

The reasons for this shift are obvious, particularly in disintegrating inner city school districts across the country. Many public schools in those districts fail to maintain physical security, can't enforce order and discipline, and provide little or nothing in the way of education to their largely minority students.

Their apologists point to the prevalence of impoverished, illiterate, and dysfunctional families. But in virtually every such city there are independent and parochial schools which are taking kids from the same families and producing well-mannered young scholars with a future. Chicago's Providence-St. Mel's and Milwaukee's Messmer High are leading examples.

The reason that public schools so often do poorly by comparison is simply that for too long they have had a monopoly. Whenever government creates a monopoly, it is as certain as night follows day that all the afflictions of monopoly will appear: bloated management, inflated pay scales, lavish benefits, litigious unionism, uninspired teaching, declining sense of mission - and desperate parents and kids who want a real education but can't afford to take their business elsewhere.

Vermont's public schools are a lot better off than those in the nation's inner cities. Nonetheless, the symptoms of monopoly disease are evident here too, and are likely to get worse. Fortunately, there is a simple remedy: put the customers - the parents - back in charge. Let them choose from a broad range of educational providers - public schools, charter schools, independent schools, faith-based schools, independent learning - and give them a voucher or a tax credit to make their choices affordable.

The opportunity to choose will bring forth informed consumers who will make the choices that they believe are best for their kids. Those parents will remain much more involved in the results of their choices, instead of passively accepting choices made for them by the government. Equally important, ending the government education monopoly will force long-overdue competition among education providers to meet market demand.

As Arizona quickly found out after encouraging the creation of over 200 independent charter schools, competition forces sluggish public schools to aggressively woo customers by offering them what the customers want, which is frequently not what the school administrations thought the customers ought to have.

For over a century Vermont has had a workable and popular parental choice system operating in some 90 tuition towns that do not operate full K-12 systems or belong to union school districts. There are 123 independent schools of all varieties in operation, and the number appears to be growing steadily. Already one town (Winhall) has closed its public school and leased the facilities to a new independent school as a result of Act 60.

Since 1961 parental choice has been limited by a Vermont Supreme Court ruling to schools which are not "pervasively religious". The Court is about to issue a ruling in the important case brought by the Town of Chittenden, which wants to tuition high schoolers to Mt. St. Joseph (Catholic) Academy. Earlier this year the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a landmark opinion of national importance, upheld the Milwaukee independent school voucher program. An equally strong pro-choice ruling here could produce irresistible pressure for dramatically expanded parental choice - pressure so great that even the Vermont NEA won't be able to thwart it.

Let's hope so.

September 1998