School vouchers: a Democratic perspective - private school voucher initiative - Analysis

On November 3rd, Californians will decide the fate of a private school voucher initiative that could spark a heated debate about the status of public education throughout the country. In the same manner that 1978's Proposition 13 heralded the emergence of the anti-tax movement, Proposition 174 could have a similarly profound effect on the political agenda for the 1990s.

It is important to realize that the school choice debate springs from the public's unhappiness with the educational system. The heart of the matter is that Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of their children's education, and vouchers are a quick and easy fix for a system that many find lacking.

Thus, when this issue is presented as a simple matter of parental choice in the schools their children attend, public opinion comes down very heavily on the side of parents. A USA Today survey showed that upwards of 70 percent of Americans favor a proposal to allow parents to choose to send their children to any public school.

In focus groups we have conducted, participants view school choice as a common sense approach to help parents deal with a public education system that may deem to be inadequate.

However, school choice becomes more problematical when the issue of taxpayer funding is introduced. When the choice issue is described as using public funds to subsidize children who opt to attend private or religious schools (like California's Proposition 174), voter reaction is tepid, even skeptical. A 1991 Gallup poll showed that a bare 50 percent to 45 percent majority of Americans support using their tax dollars to send children to non-public institutions.

While some voters like the concept of being able to determine for themselves where education dollars would be best spent, there is a corresponding fear about waiving control over a fundamental public service like education.

Indeed, the most troubling aspect to voters of a voucher system is the total lack of accountability for private and religious schools that receive public money. For example, the argument that non-public schools would be allowed to set their own admission standards -- raising the issue of discrimination -- cast doubt on the claim that parents will truly have a real "choice" in the schools their children attend.

Additionally, "deregulation" of the education system raises the specter among voters that fly-by-night schools will spring up by the hundreds, with no public oversight. The fact that a school operated by fringe groups like the KKK could receive publicly-subsidized vouchers is strongly rejected by voters.

While the issue of public vouchers obviously lends itself to division along partisan lines (laissez faire versus government regulation), it is important for Democrats to understand that leading the charge against school choice does not by itself give them added credibility when it comes to education, and we need to be prepared to address fully the concerns that the school choice movement reflects.

Specifically, support for school choice appears to stem in part from the reluctance of voters to believe that more money is the panacea for improving public education. Across the nation, the public generally believes that there is significant waste in the educational system, and that too much money is spent outside the classroom.

Thus, the changes that voters want in education have less to do with the traditional formula of throwing money at the problem, and more to do with the non-fiscal aspects of education, such as emphasizing performance and accountability. School choice is one answer to a system that is not working well, but it is not the only one. The task ahead for the anti-voucher forces, and the Democratic Party, then, is to communicate to the American people a real agenda for reform that can lead to a vigorous and high-quality system of public education.

Fred Yang is vice president of Garin-Hart Strategic Research Group, a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic polling firm.

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