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Vouchers provide incentives for failing schools, freedom for parents

by Jim Waters

Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions

The Bluegrass Institute applauds Rep. Ernie Fletcher’s recent tie-breaking vote allowing low-income students in Washington, D.C. to escape that city’s educational ghettoes. The institute believes the time has arrived to apply free market principles in the form of vouchers to America’s education system.

Those opposing Fletcher’s vote have offered no viable alternative(s). To the dismay of “educrats” (teachers’ unions, administrators and politicians – focused more on their own self-interests than on students), it turns out that throwing money at the problem has not proven to be an effective solution. A large increase in spending has not resulted in improving the performance in Washington D.C. classrooms.

The Washington Times reports that more than 75 percent of fourth- and eighth-grade students in Washington’s public schools fail to demonstrate basic math, reading and writing skills. What’s the solution? More money?

The Times reports that the school system in the nation’s capital spent $10,107 per pupil in the 1999-2000 school year, compared to the national average of $6,911. The significant difference in spending has not resulted in a passing grade for the D.C. school system.

Yet, the nation’s education pharaohs will not relent in their opposition to allowing parents to set their own children free from the educational slavery of poor-performing schools.

Congressman Fletcher is being condemned by some for switching his vote for vouchers in Washington after earlier opposing the measure. Legislators should be encouraged, not discouraged, to change their minds when they see that an earlier decision was misguided.

Philosopher John Gardner once said, “A conclusion is simply the point you reach when you stop thinking.” Who disrespects an umpire who makes the wrong call and is willing to change his decision? Making the right call brings more fairness to any contest and encourages competition.

It’s completely understandable why educrats are unhappy with Fletcher’s decision. However, sound public policy, whether in Washington or Frankfort, suggests that new policies consider long-term effects and all people rather than short-term effects that may benefit a few. Offering vouchers to parents of children in failing schools takes the power out of the hands of educrats and puts it back where it belongs. That’s reason enough for the congressman to change his call!

In fact, it’s also time for those who claim Kentucky does not need to encourage school choice to change their call. Claims about Kentucky’s educational success made by those opposing vouchers are, at best, exaggerated. The annual reports of ACT examinations, the tests that qualify students for college admissions, lack evidence that substantial improvements have been made. The reports show that Kentucky was .6 point (on a 36-point scale) behind the national composite average in 1991, the year after the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) was passed. In 2002, the state remained in the same comparative position – .6 point behind the national composite average.

This lack of progress cannot be blamed on a deficiency of funding any more in Kentucky than it can in Washington. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Kentucky increased its funding per pupil by 92 percent – from $4,993 in the 1989-1990 school year to $6,784 in 1999-2000. No matter how the numbers are spun, Kentucky educrats have failed to convert this increase in funding to improvement in performance.

Such stagnation may explain why an increasing number of Kentucky families are choosing private over public education, even without the help of vouchers. According to U.S. Census data, the Commonwealth led the nation between 1990 and 2000 in one significant educational statistic: Kentucky parents switched their children from public to private schools at a higher rate than did parents in any other state in America. Despite the fact that family incomes in Kentucky rank only 43^rd in the nation, these parents decided to make the change – even without vouchers.

Private schools already have a built-in system of accountability: They must perform well or answer to their clients who insist on better results. These parents pay for their children’s education twice – first through their property taxes and again through private tuition.

Our nation offers vouchers for GI’s for education and housing, indigent mothers for the Women’s Infants and Children’s (WIC) programs, welfare recipients and families who have been flooded or burned out of their homes. Vouchers are even offered to drug addicts for drug-treatment programs. Should not families struggling to make ends meet who want a better future for their children be offered the same opportunity?

Poorly performing schools need the incentives to improve offered by free-market principles. Making vouchers available to parents will provide a powerful incentive to improve Kentucky’s public education.

Our Commonwealth is one of four remaining states not offering parents whose children attend failing schools with competitive alternatives. What are we waiting for?

-- Jim Waters is Director of Policy and Communications for the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions. He can be reached at jwaters@bipps.org or at (270) 782-2140.

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