False Choices: Why School Vouchers Threaten Our Children's Future. INSTITUTION Rethinking Schools, Ltd

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AUTHOR Lowe, Robert, Ed.; Miner, Barbara, Ed. TITLE False Choices: Why School Vouchers Threaten Our Children's Future. INSTITUTION Rethinking Schools, Ltd. Milwaukee, WI. REPORT NO ISBN-0-942961-16-1 PUB DATE Sep 92 NOTE 37p. AVAILABLE FROM Rethinking Schools, 1001 E. Keefe Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53212 (single copies, $3 plus $2 shipping and handling, 10-100 copies, $2 each plus shipping, 100 plus copies, $1.50 each plus shipping, 500 plus copies, $1 plus shipping). PUB TYPE Collected Works Serials (022) JOURNAL CIT Rethinking Schools; spec iss p1-32 Sep 1992

EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Educational Change; Educational Discrimination; Educational Finance; *Educational Vouchers; Elementary Secondary Education; *Equal Education; *Financial Problems; *Futures (of Society); Nontraditional Education; Private Schools; Privatization; Public Schools; *School Choice; School Restructuring; *Urban Schools IDENTIFIERS Chicago Public Schools IL; Massachusetts

ABSTRACT A voucher system of schooling would destroy the few democratic gains made in public education in recent years, worsen inequalities that already permeate education, and block opportunities for meaningful reform. Articles included in this special issue are: (1) an introduction, "Why We Are Publishing False Choices" ("Rethinking Schools" Editorial Board);(2) "The Hollow Promise of School Vouchers" (R. Lowe);(3) "Voucher Plans Proliferate: From Colorado to California, Milwaukee to Baltimore" (B. Miner); (4) "'Choice' Will Devastate Our Urban Schools" (M. Waters);(5) "Our Schools Need Money, Not Rhetoric" (C. J. Prentiss); (6) "Choice Is a Smokescreen" (L. Darling-Hammond);(7) "The Debate Is about Privatization, Not Choice" (D. Meier);(8) "Playing Politices with 'Choice'" (G. Orfield);(9) "A Battle for the Soul of Public Education" (W. Furutani); (10) "Questions and Answers about School Choice" ("Rethinking Schools" Editorial Board); (11) "Whittle's Raid on Public Education" (J. Kozol); (12) "Chris Whittle's Trojan Horse" (A.J. Alvarado); (13) "Is Public School 'Choice' a Viable Alternative?" (A. Bastian); (14) "Massachusetts: Robbing the Poor To Pay the Rich" (S. Karp);(15) "Chicago: Public School 'Choice' and Inequality" (J. Kozol);(16) "When "Choice" Equals No Choice" (H. Kohl); and (17) "'Choice' and Public School Reform" (R. Peterkin). (SLD)

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I I I II : 7 Special Editors of False Choices: Robert Lowe and Barbara Miner TABLE OF CONTENTS Rethinking Schools Editors: David Levine, Robert Lowe, Introduction 2 Bob Peterson, and Rita Tenorio. The Hollow Promise of School Vouchers Contributing Editors to by Robert Lowe 3 False Choices: Cynthia Ellwood, Douglas Noble, and Larry Miller. Voucher Plans Proliferate Managing Editor:Barbara Miner by Barbara Miner 6 Office Manager.Mike Trokan Design:C.C. Brhel 'Choice' Will Devastate Our Urban Schools Production:Jeff Hansen by Maxine Waters Cover photo credits(from top to bottom): Rick Reinhard, Susan Lina Ruggles, Our Schools Need Money, Not Rhetoric Rick Reinhard, Rick Reinhard, Tom Lemke. an interview with C.J. Prentiss 9 'Choice' is a Smokescreen a quarterly publication of Rethinking Schools is an interview with Rethinking Schools, Ltd., a non-profit, tax-exempt orga- Linda Darling- Hammond 10 nization. False Choices: Why School Vouchers Threaten our Children's Future is a special edition of Rethinking The Debate is About Privatization, Schools. not 'Choice' For more informationcontact Rethinking an Interview with Deborah Meier 11 Schools, 1001 E. Keefe Ave., Milwaukee, WI. 53212, 414-964-9646; fax, 414-964-7220. Subscription rates for Playing Politics with 'Choice' Rethinking Schools are $12.50 a year, individual, and $25 by Gary °Mold 12 a year, institutional. Ordering information for False Choices is on the A Battle for the Soul of inside of the back cover. People may reprint excerpts from Public Education this pamphlet for use in educational settings. No prior by Warren Furutani 13 approval is necessary. Reprinting for publication requires prior approval. Questions and Answers about School Choice ©1992. Rethinking Schools, Ltd. Rethinking Schools Editors 14 First Edition. First printing: 10,000 copies September 1992. Whittle's Raid on Public Education ISBN#: 0-942961-16-1 by Jonathan Kasai 17 Chris Whittle's Trojan Horse by Anthony Alvarado 20 Is Public School 'Choice' a Viable Alternative? by Ann Bastian 21 Massachusetts: Robbing the Poor to Pay the Rich by Stan Karp 23 Chicago: Public School 'Choice' and Inequality by Jonathan Kozo! 24 When 'Choice' Equals no Choice by Herbert Kohl 25 'Choice' and Public School Reform by Robert Markin 28

Resources 32 Single copies of False Choices are $3.00 3 1+4. r Ap ,- 046.4.;, False Choic Why School Vouchers Threaten Our Children's Future

A Special Edition of Rethinking Schools

4 2 FALSECHOICES Why We Are Publishing False Choices By the Rethinking Schools Editorial Board

"Choice" is an appealing concept. Yet "choice" access to quality education for those who most is also an elastic term with different meanings for deserve expanded opportunities. different people in different contexts. Two themes dominate in False Choices. One Within education, "choice" has become the is a concern for equality of educational opportu- watchword of c'nservative forces. Their mean- nity. The other is a commitment to public ing is clear: providing public money for private education as an integral part of our democratic achools and substituting the marketplace for a vision for this country. "Choice" stands in public education system. opposition to both of these concerns. The implicatioas of their position are also clear. A voucher system of schooling would Diverse Perspectives destroy the few democratic gains made in public Since the debate around vouchers takes place education in recent decades, worsen the inequali- in both the political and educational arenas, we ties that already permeate education, and block have included essays from both educators and opportunities for meaningful reform. policy makers. They look at the issue from diverse perspectives, but they are united in their A False Panacea understanding that private school "choice" poses There are, of course, serious problems with a profound threat to our hopes for equality and public education in this country. Perhaps most democracy. troublesome, public schools offer highly unequal We also have included articles on public opportunities which usually translate into school "choice" plans. Within a district, public inferior opportunities for the poor and for school "choice" is often identified with so-called children of color. In this context, it is understand- "magnet" or specialty schools designed to able that some might turn to "choice" as an preserve the racial balance in urban districts by alternative. But, as the authors in this special offering special programs. "Choice" has also issue argue, "choice" is a false panacea. Despite been used to describe teacher-controlled public its appealing rhetoric, in the long run it will limit schools, like the highly publicized Central Park ELSt in Harlem, that emphasize a clear school philosophy and program developed collectively by the staff. On an interdistrict level, some states have instituted public school "choice" plans that mimic private voucher plans. While some public school "choice" programs provide some excellent opportunities, they frequently absorb a disproportionate share of a district's human and fiscal resources, relatively impoverishing the schools of students whose ep parents did not choose or whose choices were not honored. Yet the choice programs that dominate today's policy agenda involve the privatization of education, and the problems they pose are far greater. As the authors in False Choices under- score, we must build better schools for all, not islands of excellence for the already privileged. Our children all our children deserve no less. ri 7 RETHINKING SCHOOLS SPECIAL EDITION 3

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For nearly 150 years, public education in the United restaurant). Parents could add their own resources to the States has been recognized as a fundamental public value of a voucher, and, presumably, schools could set good. That recognition is now under attack. Building on their own tuition level and admission requirements) a decade of national power that has radically redefined At the time, Friedman's proposal failed to attract the nature of public responsibility, conservatives, widespread support. While some people excoriated under the aegis of "choice," have proposed the substitu- public schools during the1950s for curricular laxity that tion of markets for public schools. Further, they have allegedly gave Russians the jump in the space made their arguments plausible to diverse constituen- optimism prevailed that curriculum innovation and cies. more attention to advanced placement classes would Despite the grave inadequacies of public education remedy the problem. Further, for the first decade after today, however, throwing schools open to the market- the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, opti- place will promote neither excellence nor equality for mism remained high that public schools could create al!. Rather, it will enhance the freedom of the privileged equality of educational opportunity. In fact, it was to pursue their advancement unfettered by obligation to school desegregation that most underscored the conser- community. vative nature of Friedman's stance. Current efforts to promote an educational marketplace through choice trace directly to the work of The First Choice Program conservative economist Milton Friedman. Writing in The first choice program provided white students in the mid-1950s, Friedman proposed that every family be Virginia public funds to attend privatr academies in given a voucher of equal worth for each child attending order to avoid attending public schools with Blacks? school. Under this plan, families could choose any Friedman addressed this matter in his proposal. Although school that met rudimentary government oversight he expressed his personal desire for integration, he (which Friedman likened to the sanitary inspection of a continued on next page 4 FALSE CHOICES

believed that state-imposed desegregation violated par- that choice will provide both equity and excellence. Yet ents' freedom to choose. Thus Friedman asserted the nothing could be farther from the truth. While the primacy of freedom over equality and finessed the lack Milwaukee program a kind of affirmative action of freedom the less-than-equal possessed. effort may indeed provide greater opportunity for During much of the1960s confidence prevailed that some of its participants, Chubb and Moe's brief for public education could promote both excellence and providing all individuals with vouchers to attend private equity. But by the 1980s such confidence had seriously schools fails to sustain its thesis and has dire implications deteriorated in a political climate that identified the state for equality of educational opportunity. as the perpetrator rather than the ameliorator of social The Milwaukee Parent Choice Program has received and economic ills' A wave of national reports contrib- attention far out of proportion to its immediate impact. uted to this climate by maintaining that the United In a district that enrolls nearly 100,000 students, the States was losing its competitive edge because schools program was originally intended to provide 1,000 low- were inadequately developing students' skills.' At the income students with approximately $2,500 each so same time, sustained inequities in educational out- that they might attend a non-sectarian private school. comes between white students and students of color Only 558 students applied for the 1990-91 school year, seriously undermined faith in public schools' capacity and merely 341 ultimately enrolled in the seven schools to provide equal educational opportunity. In such an that agreed to participate. environment, a new private school choice program that Despite the program's small scale, nationally emphasizes opportunities for low-income students of prominent conservatives vocally endorsed it. Even before color was linked with a new, more public relations the school term began, it won praise from the Bush oriental "efense of the educational marketplace. This administration, the Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin's new approach met considerable success in creating the Republican Governor Tommy Thompson, and the head illusion that choice would serve all. of the powerful Bradley Foundation. And despite the The link was forged publicly in June 1990 when questionable success of the program during its first Wisconsin State Rep. Annette "Polly" Williams (D- year, many advocates persist in seeing it as a first step Milwaukee), the African-American sponsor of the highly in restoring the nation's educational health. They believe publicized Milwaukee Parent Choice Program, traveled this only can be accomplished by breaking up the public to Washington, D.C., as a featured participant in the school monopoly. unveiling of Politics, Markets, and America's Schools The program also has spawned vocal opposition. byJohn Chubb and Ten-y Some antagonists, like Wisconsin Superintendent of Moe.' Rarely do schol- Public Instruction Herbert Grover, view Polly Williams Despite the grave arly works become me- as the unwitting accomplice of right-wing business inadequacies of public dia events, but this event interests bent on destroying a public good' Others signified the launching oppose the program because they fear that it presages an education, throwing of a vigorous campaign end to a variety of perceived goods, including to promote educational desegregation, teachers' unions, a common curriculum, schools open to the choice. It also implied and provisions for children with special needs. the existence of far Thus, both proponents and opponents rightly see the marketplace will promote broader support for open- Williams initiative as an entering wedge in a national ing schools to the mar- battle over the future shape of education in the United neither excellence nor ketplace than the histori- Sales. It is important, however, to see the Milwaukee cally conservative con- Choice Program on its own terms. That many equality for all. stituency for choice conservatives support the plan does not make Polly would suggest. Although Williams their agent. Rather, she has responded to the it would be a mistake to conclude that support for sustained failure of the Milwaukee Public Schools to "choice" represents a consensus among diverse politi- provide an acceptable education to low income children cal forces, it rapidly is becoming the major policy issue of color. affecting schools in the United States today. During 1989-90, for instance, Hispanics maintained an average GPA of 1.47 and African Americans aver- Neither Equity nor Excellence aged1.31. In three of Milwaukee's fifteen high schools, At the cutting edge of this issue are the choice between 36% and 40% of Blacks were suspended. The program in Milwaukee and Chubb and Moe's Politics, previous year the annual dropout rate was 17.8% for Markets, and America's Schools. The former, a maiest African Americans and 17.4% for Hispanics' program that provides public funds for private education, In the face of miserable average grades and appall- appears to demonstrate in practice that choice expands ing suspension and dropout rates, Williams has enabled equality of opportunity. The latter attempts to a small number of students to seek an education else- theoretically justify the abandonment of all public where partly in community-based schools that have education on the grounds that choice will produce long served African Americans and Hispanics. Under educational excellence. the circumstances it makes little sense to berate the Taken together, the program and the book suggest program for violating the ideal of the common school or RETHINKING SCHOOLS SPECIAL EDITION 5 the goal of an integrated society. Such unrealized vi- sions are inadequate justifications for denying a few children a potential opportunity to pursue an education of value. As advocates of choice are quick to point out, the Milwaukee program gives some options to low income families that the well-to-do have long exer- cised, and virtually no one challenges the right of the privileged to either move to their schools of choice in the suburbs or to attend private schools. Troubling Questions Yet the program does raise questions. While the $2,446 each student could bring as tuition to a private school did expand choice during the program's first year, this relatively small voucher meant that parents could not choose, if they desired, elite, overwhelmingly white preparatory schools. Second, those who applied for the program were probably among the most aggressive about pursuing quality education for their children and, consequently, among the most enfran- chised. Third, applications exceeded openings in participating private schools. Admission was to be based on a lottery system, but without the Department of Public Instruction monitoring the process it might have been difficult for participating schools to resist taking the strongest applicants. Even if the program were an outstanding success, it would not constitute a brief for substituting the marketplace for public schools. The continuing praise of the Bush administration notwithstanding, there were troubling signs during the I program's first year. Most important, the Juanita Virgil Academy, the one school essentially created in response pose. And they recognize that parents have little influ- to the voucher-bearing clientele, suffered inadequate ence over the schools their children must attend. The books and supplies from the outset and soon closed, authors identify such unsatisfactory conditions as key disrupting the lives of the 63 "choice" students who had contributors to what they perceive as the degenerate enrolled. In addition, some 15 students were dismissed character of education in the United States. for disciplinary reasons or learning problems, so that They further contend that many of the educational only 259 of the 341 enrollees completed the first semes- reforms mandated in the1980s such as longer school ter in schools of choice.' Finally, nearly 100 non- terms, more homework, and increased academic graduating members of that group elected not to partici- requirements for high school graduation were pate in the program during its second year' Problems guaranteed to fail because they were imposed within the Milwaukee Choice Program, as the follow- bureaucratically. In fact, they see bureaucracy as the ing analysis of Chubb and Moe's book will indicate, central impediment to effective schools. They believe it multiply when "choice" expands to include everyone. strangles the capacity of principals and teachers to In Politics, Markets, and America' s Schools, Chubb fashion schools after their own vision and renders them and Moe offer an elaborated version of Milton unresponsive to the interests of parents. The solution to Friedman's argument. Like Friedman, they say little poor education, according to Chubb and Moe, is not the about equality of educational opportunity per se, but futile effort to impose quality through increased bureau- hold that education will improve for all through opening cratic controls but to eliminate such controls. it to the competition of the marketplace. They go so far Chubb and Moe hold that public schools are as to maintain that public schools generally are inca- necessarily bureaucratic since in democratically pable of providing effective education because the way controlled organizations bureaucracy is the means they are governed limits their capacity to remedy short- through which competing political interests comings. institutionalize their influence. They argue that private Chubb and Moe point out numerous problems that schools, in contrast, tend to be autonomous because afflict public education today. They observe that accountability does not spring from bureaucratic principals cannot hire or fire teachers. They note that regulation, but from the market mechanism. If a private teachers run a gauntlet of irrelevant certification re. school fails to do an effective job, according to their quirements, possess limited autonomy in the classroom, reasoning, clients will leave it for another. Chubb and and are denied colleagues who share a nommen pur- continued on page 26 a FALSE CHOICES

From Colorado to California, Milwaukee to Baltimore Voucher Plans Proliferate By Barbara Miner

To listen to some, the concept of "choice" or"vouch- students to attend whatever public, private or religious ers" is the greatest educational invention since the school they want. The four-year pilot program calls for chalkboard or the lead pencil. $500 million in the first year for 500,000 children. The Across the country, these educational buzzwords are money would go directly to the parents, without "any being hurled right and left as part of a relentless, well- cumbersome federal regulations," according to Educa- financed effort to replace our public school system with tion Secretary Lamar Alexander. a marketplace approach to education. Following is a sampling of the voucher and "choice" The outcome of the presidential election is unlikely initiatives that have proliferated across the country. to dramatically alter the balance of forces. While bol- Colorado: A referendum on the November ballot stered by the support of the Bush Administration, advo- is seen by both supporters and opponents as a watershed cates of vouchers are waging a multi-pronged fight that in the national controversy. Under the plan, parents relies as much on local and statewide initiatives as it would get anywhere from $2,100 to $2,300 in public does on national legislation. Further, they are supported funds to send their children to private or parochial by major corporations and well-endowed foundations schools or to educate them at home. If approved, the that are committed to their pro-voucher, marketplace measure would go into effect in the 1993-94 school agenda regadiess of who occupies the White House. year. The State Board of Education voted 6-1 to oppose While it's impossible to predict what may happen to the plan while unanimously reaffirming support for any one voucher proposal, conservative forces clearly public school choice. have seized the initiative. They have already captured California: California supporters of vouchers hope significant ideological ground, for example, by using to place a referendum on the November 199411111ot that the progressive-sounding term "choice" as opposed to a is similar to the Colorado plan. The measure. would more neutral term such as "vouchers." allocate approximately $2,500 to all children tc attend "There is no question that there is a tremendous any private or religious school. Critics have cnarged momentum around the country behind this [voucher] that the measure would siphon off more than $1 billion movement," notes Quentin Quade, a profez.sor of politi- from public schools, which are already suffering from

cal science at Marquette University and head of the the austerity budget passed by the California legislature. newly created Virgil C. Blum Center for Parental Free- this summer. The measure came close to being on the dom in Education. Displaying the optimism of pro- November 1992 ballot, but was derailed at the last voucher advocates, Quade argues, "It's just a question minute by a court challenge arguing that there were of time before the dam breaks." insufficient signatures to meet the legal requirements Some 37 states considered "choice" legislation in for a referendum. 1992, up from only a handful a few years earlier, Wisconsin: Milwaukee has a three-year-old ex- according to the Center for Choice in Education of the periment under which several hundred low-income U.S. Department of Education. Proposals included both children receive $2,500 in public tax-dollars to attend a private voucher and public school "choice" plans, al- private, non-sectarian school. (See "The Hollow Prom- though controversy centered on the voucher plans. ise of School Vouchers," beginning on page 3.) In some states, such as Colorado and California, Pennsylvania: A proposal, defeated earlier this voucher advocates plan to take their proposals directly year, would have provided up to $900 to every school- to the voters in statewide referenda. In Chicago and Los age child in the state to attend a public school in another Angeles, supporters of vouchers are filing court chal- district or a private or parochial school. Opponents lenges. In Baltimore and Dade County, the "choice" stressed that the plan would have particularly discrimi- battle cry has translated itself into for-profit "charter" nated against poor people, because the $900 would not schools that have contracts with the local school board. have been enough for tuition at most private or paro- And in several cities such as Indianapolis and Milwau- chial schools. kee, private businesses and foundations have decided to Massachusetts: The legislature passed a plan in get a jump start on hoped-for legislative victories and September 1991 under which students could attend a have set up privately funded voucher plans. public school in another district. The plan called for the On a national level, "choice" and vouchers are the original district to pay the cost of schooling in the centerpiece of the America ZOO education plan first student's new district even if the per pupil expendi- proposed by President Bush in the spring of 1991. The tures were significantly higher. (See the article, "Rob- latest Bush proposal, announced in June 1992, would bing the Poor to Pay the Rich," on page 23.) A similar give $1,000 scholarships to low-and middle-income proposal has been made in Wisconsin. To date, eleven 9 RETHINKING SCHOOLS SPECIAL EDITION 7

states have begun some form of statewide public school Los Angeles calling for private-school tuition vouchers choice. (See the article, "Is Public School 'Choice' a for the parents of low-income schoolchildren repre- Viable Alternative?" on page 21.) sented in the suit. The suits were filed by the Institute for Baltimore: Ei ght public elementary and one middle Justice, a conservative, public-interest law firm based in school were taken over this fall by Education Alterna- Washington, D.C. The suits argue that parents should tives "ac., a for-profit outfit based in Minneapolis. EAI receive vouchers equal to the state money spent on local is running the schools under a 5-year contract with the public schools because the quality of public schools in Baltimore City school district, and also runs one public those cities violates state constitutional guarantees to school in Dade County, Fla. The schools, known as educational opportunity. Clint Bolick, the attorney rep- Tesseract schools, will receive the same per pupil fi- resenting the Institute for Justice, said Chicago and Los nancing as other Baltimore public schools. One a the Angeles were targeted in the voucher suits because both key controversies has surrounded EAI's plans to re- systems have "monumental" academic problems but place existing paraprofessionals in the schools with strong private school systems. "instructional interns." While the paraprofessionals re- In a number of cities, meanwhile, businesses and ceive wages averaging $10 an hour and benefits, the foundations are instituting private school voucher plans. interns would be paid about $7 an hour without any In Milwaukee, for example, a private initiative known benefits, according to Education Week. Critics also are as PAVE is providing grants meeting half the tuition at concerned because art, music, and physical education a private or religious school, up to $1,000. PAVE, teaching positions are being eliminated, and the number which stands for Partners Advancing Values in Educa- of special education classes are being cut. tion, is supported by some of the city's largest busi- Of related concern, Chapter One programs in five nesses. it received initial funding from the Lynde and other Baltimore schools are being turned over to the Harry Bradley Foundation, one of the most prominent Sylvan Learning Centers, a private company with fran- conservative foundations in the country which makes chised tutoring centers across the United States. approximately $18 million in grants annually. "From what we are seeing in Baltimore," says John The Milwaukee program was modeled after a simi- Brown, president of the Baltimore rIty Teachers Asso- lar program in Indianapolis started by the Golden Rule ciation, "the education reform/pro-children rhetoric [of Insurance Company. Privately funded voucher pro- for-profit and voucher advocates) is just a smokescreen grams have also been instituted in Atlanta and the Little for getting at our public education dollars and our jobs." Rock area. 0 Supporters of "choice" are also pressing their case in the courts. This June, lawsuits were filed in Chicago and Barbara Miner is nsanaging editor of Rethinking Schools.

;11 8 FALSE CHOICES

`Choice' Will Devastate Our Urban Schools By Maxine Waters

The American public school system is responsible those who will be rejected will be those students who for the education of approximately 90% of our nation's require higher cost services such as special or remedial children. Therefore, the last thing this country can education. afford to do is to divert scarce resources from our The recently passed and widely acclaimed Ameri- already hurting public schools to fund private school cans with Disability Act, civil rights legislation, and education. That is what would happen under school laws governing the use of defamatory materials have no "voucher" plans supported by the Bush Administration bearing on the functioning of private schools; and if and other conservatives. students should misbehave, fail to perform adequately, As states experience budgetary crises, we must or simply not fit the mold, no uniform standard shall decide and act on meaningful reforms that will enable regulate how their cases will be handled opening the our educational system to better respond to the needs of floodgates for preferential treatment. our young people. "Choice" is not a reform it is an Our taxpayers' dollars should not be used to support abandonment of American children and teachers who privately owned, elite academies. Neither should rely on our public system for education and job taxpayers support sectarian institutions or religious opportunities. Contrary to claims, the school choice schools, as prohibited by our constitutional mandate proposal will be devastating for urban, minority, and separating church and state. poor students who desperately need quality education. Tragically, at a time when our children need and Private schools are not governed by federal, state, or deserve serious, thoughtful, and dramatic change, the community public policies. While some might wield best that "choice" advocates can do is offer a smoke- this fact to support expanding choice to include private screen that diverts attention and resources from our schools, such a move will simply amount to an open nation's poorest and "at-risk" students. season on the hard-won civil rights gains our country Maxine Waters, a Democratic Congresswoman from Los has made in the last 30 years. Private schools, for Angeles, is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus instance, are free to discriminate they may accept and of the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs anyone by their own choosing, and you can be sure that Committee. RETHINKING SCHOOLS SPECIAL EDITION 9 Our Schools Need Money, Not Rhetoric An interview with C. J. Prentiss, State Representative

The following is condensed from an interview with cated for years. It's just that we have never been willing C. J. Prontiss, a leading advocate in the Ohio House of to fund them in a serious way. Sure we may have a pilot Representatives for education reform. She was inter- program or a collaborative effort here and there. But viewed by Barbara Miner ofRethinking Schools. there has never been the overall, systemwide effort needed to make these reforms. Some people are advocating private school choice So when I hear somebody talking some nonsense as the solution to the crisis facing education in this about school choice, which will only deal with a select country. Do you agree? number of kids and will take money away from the No. I think private school choice is a tactic to deflect public schools that are the only hope for some children, attention from the government's responsibility to edu- I say that is morally wrong. cate all children. Private school choice, on the face of it, The problem is, if we aren't committed to truly would not accommodate all children. Second, it takes reforming our public schools, then support for private energy away from the real question: are we willing, as school choice will only escalate. People are frustrated a government, to spend the money necessary to educate with the public schools. In the Black community, in all our children? Third, it allows the government to particular, there is this great sense of helplessness in dangle this carrot in front of desperate parents who are terms of improving the schools. frustrated with the public school systems, while it pays lip service to educational reform. Given the fiscal crisis facing many states, how do you convince legislators to allocate the money nec- What should be the focus of state legislators who essary for public school reform? are concerned about our schools? I point out the cost effectiveness of quality education. I use the slogan, and it's not new, "You either pay There is no magic as to discovering what works. The jury is in. We know what works. My charge as a state now or you pay later." legislator is clear. Too much money and attention are When you know that 40% of all pregnant teenagers being placed on measuring performance outcomes. We are two-to-three grade lev- need instead to shift the debate and money toward els behind, and that 80% of uclivcry standards. By this I mean the amount of re- children in juvenile deten- sources and the quality of programs we are actually tion homes read at a fifth providing to all children. When I raise this issue of grade reading level or be- low, and that 60% of prison equity of such delivery standards, my colleagues on the Education Committee cry in unison, "C. J., that makes inmates are functionally il- sense, but it costs too much money." literate, and that 90% of those However, this does not deter me. I begin with the on welfare have difficulty concept that we must have more adultsworkingwith with the printed and written children. For example, we need smaller class sizes so word, then you see the con- children receive the individual attention that they need. nection between success in We also need more social services for children and school and success in life. 0 families. I would push for the concept o f one-stop social service 3 based at the school. It's just common sense. C. J. Prentiss (D-Cleveland) Why should a mother have to run around town to ten is a member of the Ohio different agencies? House of Representatives. She We need all-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds. We is on the following need more support programs for parents. Too often, committees: Education; they don't have the foggiest idea how to help their child Health and Retirement; Commerce and Labor; and academically. They want to do what's best, but they Urban Affairs. She chairs the don't always know what that means. Joint House and Senate We need resources, everything from new buildings, Committee on Infant Mortality to new science labs, computers, and textbooks. and Family Support, and has None of these ideas is new. I hate to even use the received the legislator of the word "reform.' because these changes have been advo- year award. 10 FALSE CHOICES 'Choice' is a Smokescreen An interview with Linda Dar ling-Harnanond

The following is condensed from an interview with any kid on the edge, choice is a marginal answer to the Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at much bigger problem of our crumbling educational Teacher's College, Columbia University and co-direc- infrastructure. tor of the National Center for Restructuring Education. I want infrastructural change, and I want it for She was interviewed by Barbara Miner of Rethinking central cities because they have been on the short end of Schools. the stick forever. That's first and foremost.

Some people argue that vouchers increase educa- What do you mean by infrastructural change? tional equity because they allow low-income children, I mean changes such as equal and adequate alloca- especially children of color, to go to private schools. tion of dollars. I mean access to resources such as Do you think vouchers promote equity? libraries, materials, and computers. I mean policies for This issue is particularly poignant because those recruiting teachers, for preparing them, for ensuring who are proposing private school choice are frequently that there be enough well-qualified teachers in all sub- the same people who have been opposing equal funding ject areas. I mean policies that encourage good teaching to schools for the last 20 years. and learning many regulations, particularly in cur- The real equity issue is that there are radically riculum and testing, work against good education and unequal allocations of funds to schools. These unequal discourage higher level thinking by requiring a frag- allocations routinely disadvantage schools in central mented, dumbed-down curriculum governed by mul- cities and in poor rural areas. Private school choice, as tiple choice tests. it is currently being proposed, is a smokescreen to avoid We have other fundamental problems. We pay teach- tackling this real equity issue. ers 25% less than college-educated workers in other If you allow people to "choose" schools, there are a occupations. We put lots of money into chains of number of limited slots in the well-funded schools bureaucracy and far fewer dollars actually get to the worth choosing. So all you are doing is making a tiny classroom than in other countries. adjustment in the allocation of educational opportunity Of all the infrastructure problems, the single largest for a very small number of children and still condemn- is the inadequate supply of good teachers. The single ing a large number of children to poorly funded, inad- most damaging aspect of education in many central city equate schools. schools is the radical inexperience and lack of expertise While I am always in favor of something that helps of many of the teachers. We routinely put the teachers with the least experience and training in the most troubled central city schools. We need a federal policy that supports teacher preparation and training. We don't have enough qualified teachers in math and science, for example, and nobody acknowledges this. The shortage is such that one-third of American schools do not offer physics courses. They can't. They do not have the qualified teachers. And over one-third the mathematics and science teachers are not qualified to teach what they are teaching. We hire whomever we can, or we ask teachers to teach out of their field. For instance, when there was a glut of physical education and home economics teachers, many were moved to teach biology and math. We have had this chronic shortage for almost 40 years. We have done nothing to solve that. In fact, President Reagan got rid of some of the scholarship and loan programs, along with the Urban Teachers Corps, which were designed to address this problem. The disappearance of these programs has also contributed to a growing shortage of teachers of color, who are often most committed to working in central city schools and who are needed in all schools as valuable role models. 1,0 Until we deal with these infrastructure problems, we are never going to be able to educate children well. 3 RETHINKING SCHOOLS SPECIAL EDITION 11 The Debate Is About Privatization, not 'Choice' An interview with Deborah Meier

The following is condensed from an interview with of equity. We have had problems of inequity in all sorts Deborah Meier, founder and director of Central Park of Exhools. People who are not concerned with equity East in District 4 in New York City. District 4 has a long- will use choice inequitably. standing public school choice plan. Meier was interviewed by Barbara Miner of Rethinking Schools. Why should we have a public education system in this country? What are the advantages? You have been associated with the concept of The concept of public education rests on an assump- school choke. How does your view of choke differ ticn that the way we educate our youth is connected to from that of President Bush? the collective future we hope for. There isn't a more There are two unrelated perspectives, and they both important decision in a democracy than the kind of use the word choice. When Bush and other conservatives education we want for all our children. If, for example, talk about choice, they mean that private enterprise and we believe that children have a better future if they meet the marketplace are better and that public institutions kids from different backgrounds, then a certain policy are, by their nature, inferior. follows from that belief. We need to dismiss the idea that the concept of The presumed advan- Choice does not solve the choice has anything to do with Bush's proposals. He's tage of the marketplace is not talking about choice at all. He's taLkin,- about that you don't think about problem of equity. People privatization and a means to get rid of public euucation. anyone else when you If we don't watch out, the word choice will mean make decisions. Under a who are not concerned only what Bush wants it to mean. marketplace approach to schools, the only people with equity will use What do you mean by school choke? who have a voice is par- When I've argued for choice, it has had nothing to do ents. The idea is thatchoice inequitably. with abandoning public education. It has been a way to somehow through parents argue against the factory model of education. It has been making the individual de- a way to create more diverse and coherent educational cision mhat's best for communities. It has been a strategy for invention and their child, we will get innovation. what is best for society. There are many places in this country where choice Unfortunately, you means giving families wider choices among public can find numerous ex- schools. The only thing it doesn't do is give them money amples of other parts of in order to go to private schools. society that are privatized Here in District 4 in East Harlem, we have used and where individuals can choice to create more and varied public schools during make private choices the last 20 years or so. We now have 52 elementary and such as medical care and junior high schools which replaced 20 former schools. hospitals and these in- And we offer parents in the district the chance to go to stitutions are as corrupt any of these 52 schools. and bureaucraticas The largest school has 300 students and the smallest schools. has 50. Some have different styles or focuses. In some, I don't see any reason they have more music, or a lot more science. In some it's to assume that democracy just a difference in how they organize the school day. and the needs of the larger In Manhattan, virtually every district is moving in society will be served by this direction taking the same buildings and dividing substituting collective de- them into smaller, more cohesive schools where people cision-making with pri- are there by choice. Part of what motivates these plans vate, individual decision- is the unfortunately new understanding that small schools making. And I'm taking it are better. It is an enormously sad and almost criminal for granted that America fact of American schools that we got enamored of large wants to maintain a de- schools. mocracy. Ei At the same time, choice does not solve the problem 12 FALSE CHOICES Playing Politics with 'Choice' By Gary Orfield

Choice is a term that is difficult to disagree with in poor, two of the most important are the Medicaid principle, but which has no clear meaning until many program, which allows people to choose doctors in the blanks are filled in. In other words, it is an almost perfect free market, and the Pell Grant and Guaranteed Student political concept. Loan programs, which enable students to choose col- When asked whether they favored allowing choice leges and other postsecondary education they would within their district, 65% of public school parents said otherwise be unable to afford. These are multi-billion "yes" in a 1990 Gallup survey. Many who support dollar programs based on choice and "self-regulating choice in the abstract, however, may want a common markets." core of educational requirements, no subsidies for reli- If Medicaid made the market work for low-income gious education, maintenance of locally-based schools black residents of the South S ide of Chicago, the quality in their areas, enforcement of civil rights and handi- of health care should have soared as doctors and clinics capped rights in all schools receiving public funds, etc. rushed in to compete for the hundreds of millions of Many who oppose increasing taxes to pay for transpor- dollars of business. Just the opposite has happened. tation would also oppose limiting access to schools for Medical practitioners have not rushed into the area and students who cannot afford to pay for transportation. many refuse Medicaid patients. Many hospitals and Cheap choice plans, with little provision for equalizing clinics have gone bankrupt and shut their doors, includ- information among parents and providing transporta- ing the city's only black-controlled hospital. Far from tion, are likely to intensify rather than dithinish inequal- efficient, low-cost service, much of the treatment is ityand racial segregation among schools, and could extremely expensive, highly inefficient, and very in- leave disadvantaged students in even more inadequate convenient emergency room treatment of conditions and isolated schools. neglected much too long. The system has been far more The Bush plan promises large impacts because the expensive than predicted, has left tremendous inequali- market mechanism is expected ties in place, and has produced a strikingly inferior level to force improvements, as par- of care by decaying institutions. In response, Bush is Choice plans are likely ents leave weak schools and proposing more cost and service regulations. choose better ones. The argu- Pell Grant and student loan experiences are similar. to intensify rather than ment should be very familiar The grants and loans surely helped low-income students because it is the deregulation to enter college and other forms of training, but they diminish inequality and argument that dominated the were never able to make access equal for lower-income 1980s. Deregulation of the sav- students. The grants were never set at high enough racial segregation. ings and loan industry, cable amounts to permit a full range of choices. Over time, as television, airlines, telephone tuition soared and grants increased less rapidly, the systems, and other institutions was expected to produce program became more and more limited and, by the huge gains in efficiency and service. There have been mid-1980s, the gains of the previous period were sub- successes in some areas but also some spectacular stantially lost. failures. In other words, there is nothing about a choice plan The S & L crisis is already the most costly financial that can really control the cost of the institutions chosen disaster in American history. It shows that many busi- among, or which can guarantee that government will ness leaders, freed of bureaucratic control, decided to provide a level of resources from year to year that speculate recklessly with other people's money. The enables real choices to be possible. Costs are, by airline experiment has reached a point of diminishing definition, outside government's control while voucher competition, virtual regional monopolies, deteriorated levels are determined not by need, but by political service, less convenient schedules for many travelers, compromise. strong efforts to distort markets with frequent traveler There is nothing in a choice system to assure either awards, proprietary reservation systems, predatory lo- a full supply of choices at the right price or the level of cal pricing, and other market distortions. Congress has support needed to make real choices available. 0 conceded the failure of cable TV deregulation and authorized re-regulation. The romance of the self-regu- Gary Orfield is a professor of political science and lating marketplace has dimmed considerably. education at Harvard University . This article is excerpted The school choice debate usually ignores the other from Voices from the Field: 30 Expert Opinions on major policy areas in which a choice approach has long "America 2000," The Bush Administration Strategy to been dominant and where the Bush Administration is "Reinvent" America's Schools, funded by the William T. asking for more regulation. Among policies serving the Grant Foundation. A Ow I..0 RETHINKING SCHOOLS SPECIAL EDITION 13

A 4.

A Battle Ytt ^ r for the M' 4 Soul of

Public .02 Education By Warren Furutani

When we talk about choice. in California, we are talking about a mortal battle for the fundamental soul of public education in a democratic society. That is what the fight is about It is no coincidence that funding for public education is receding as our school districts become more populated by children of color. It is no coincidence that dollars are being pulled from our underfunded, overbur- dened school system at the same time our governor and the President of this nation are pushing vouchers and choice as an alternative for the middle class in educa- Pr. tion. What took place in California will take place in your state as well. It is clear that vouchers and choice will be a vehicle for those who have the mobility and the additional dollars to go to the private sector while at the same time guaranteeing that those who can't augment that voucher will then be relegated to an underfunded, over- burdened system. And it will be a system that has been deserted by the middle class, deserted by those who think they are getting better for their own but who in fact are eliminating one of the most fundamental democratic institutions in our country, which is public education. As administrators and school boards in urban districts are, like their students, increasingly people of color and as people of color become more of a force in our urban centers we find that those who sit in seats of state and federal power are trying to pull away the It is no coincidence that middle class. They are deserting public education. As a result, those who are left behind, those with special funding for public education is needs, special challenges, different languages, those receding as our school whom we've been failing for generations, will be relegated to the back seat of society for the rest of their districts become more lives. We cannot accept that.0 populated by children of color.

Warren Furutani is a member (and past president) of the Los Angeles City Board of Education. The above is adapted from a speech before the National Education Association Conference on Women and Minorities in June 1992. 14 FALSE CHOICES

ENOUGH OF 71-115 PUi3i1C SCHOOLING, WATcH CLOSELY A5 7HE MARKETPLACE MAGICALLY IMPROVES EPOCIITIOAI!

3151 1-114E IT IMPE ROVE 0 "TU c, 0 EfaiVoMY/ 2

Questions and Answers about School Choice Following are answers to some of the most common outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968. questions about school "choice." The article is based In recent years, private school "choice" has become on discussion among members of the Rethinking Schools explicitly linked to an assault on schools as public editorial board and contributing editors of this special institutions. Some advocates of private "choice," like edition. Milwaukee MayorJohn Norquist, have called for scrap- ping the entire public school system. When people talk about school "choice" what do they mean? What about plans that allow parents to choose At this point, people generally are talking about among public schools? voucher plans ittat funnel public dollars into non-public A lot depends on the program. If protections aren't schools, either through direct payments or tax credits. At built in, public school "choice" has some of the same issue is the attempt to siphon dollars away from public problems as private school "choice." Some plans, for schools and to privatize education. example, set up specialty or "magnet" schools that Interestingly, the word "choice" wasn't used in con- become havens for middle-class students. These schools nection with schools until the controversy over desegre- often get more resources, or have entrance criteria, or gation. Throughout the South, so-called Freedom of attract parents who know how to work the system. Choice plans limited desegregation by putting the bur- It's important to look at what parents really want in den on African-American students to provide transpor- a school. Above all, they want a quality school with a tation for themselves, to transfer to schools that were safe environment that encourages learning. Magnet or majority white, to figure out when to apply, and so forth. specialty schools tend to offer such an environment. In essence, these public school "choice" plans were They also show that public schools can work if they are RETHINKING SCHOOLSSPECIAL EDITION 1

given sufficient resources and are properly structured. would see a lot more small, non-union At the same time, children learn shops. You in different ways would see less well-trained teachets and school communitiescan be built around a certain and there would be a higher turnover. And that would influencethe quality philosophy or emphasis suchas schools that empha- of education. size music, or math,or a Montessori or whole language teaching philosophy. Undoubtedly, some union officialsand teachers are motivated by self-interest. And it is Even under a well-structuredpublic school plan, incumbent upon however, "choice" is progressive teachers to work withintheir unions and to not a panacea. It must be part ofa push them beyond narrow trade broader reform strategy that union concerns. includes such changes as But many teachers honestly better teacher training,a multicultural, anti-racist cur- question whether the riculum, and more marketplace will magically leadto quality. Among resources. The key is ensuring stan- them are educators who dards and equity for all schoolsand all children. continuously work passir,n- ately to improve schools andadvance the opportunities of their students. They Because public schoolsare a monopoly, they don't worry what will happen when the seats are filled up in the private have to worry about competition.Wouldn't "choice" schools and there are still millions of children left force public schools to bemore innovative? to attend a public school system depleted of resources. The notion that competitionwill engender quality ignores that there are deeprace and class divisions in Don't parents have society. The reality is, there a right to choose a school that are different markets for they feel coincides with theirvalue system? different people basedon how much money they have. Even though Cadillac and Parents hare the right to chooseany school they Mercedez Benz dealers want but they don't have the right may compete against each other, theydon't compete to expect that the taxpayer will necessarily pay for thatschool. with Ford Festiva or Yugodealers. The quality of the car The more important issue isthat parents you buy depends on how muchmoney you have, not on and the inherent benefits of taxpayers have not only the right butthe responsibil- competition. You alsosee any ity to become involved in number of low quality products the public schools. And this that stay on the market needs to take place in the broader from plastic tennis shoes to pre-fah, context of fighting for cardboard homes a better education for all kids. Are because they are all thatsome people can afford. we going to continue tl-idividualistic self-centerednessof the 1980s and It's also important to rememberthat competition in altuw business depends heavily a few parents to make individualchoices with on advertising and cutting little regard for the public good? costs. Do we really wantour schools to follow the lead Or are we going to fight of business and cut collectively, as parents andtaxpayers, for a better costs to the bone, perhaps by getting educational system for all? rid of "extras" suchas libraries or music and art rooms? Or mimic corporate advertising, We must balance the rights ofparents against the by spending precious rights of society as dollars on public relations efforts? a whole. Parental rights, forex- ample, do not mean thatschools with discriminatory Most important, talking aboutpublic schools as a monopoly misses the point. policies should receive publicfunds. Or that public The reason we have public money should go to religious schools. schools is because educationis a public responsibility that is essential to building a democratic society. People Many religious schools have need to develop skills and a strong track record common democratic values in on educating kids. What is order to participate reasonably so bad about opening up and critically in civic life. the voucher programto religious schools? Our schools are forging thefuture of our democracy, not The most fundamentalreason is that our Constitu- just the future of individualdoctors and scientists. tion, for very goodreasons, mandates a separation Unions are some of the between church and state. Ifyou're a Christian, it'seasy strongest opponents of to forget that there are private school "choice," andthey are opposed because many other faiths in this country. The core issue is that individuals they fear losing theirpower and membership. Isn't the would be paying union position self-serving? tax money to support schools withreligious values that might be antagonisticto their own religious values. It's easy for proponents of"choice" to continually claim that teachers and Religion is a profoundlyprivate matter and should unions are only interested in remain that way. themselves. It's more difficultto answer their criticisms. Trade unions do have the right to oppose attempts to Why has the idea of privateschool "choke" be- turn services over to non-unionworkers. And given the come so popular in recent years? attacks on unions in recent years, both by the govern- First, there is legitimate ment and by businesses,teacherunions have legitimate dissatisfaction with the fears. failures of the public schools.In urban areas, in particular, far too many schools In Milwaukee, for example, are failing the needs ofour the teachers in thecom- children. munity-based and religious schoolsare paid a lot less and have fewer benefits than Second, there has beena conservative public school teachers. If counterrevolution against public you hada significantexpansion of voucher schools, services generally. you continued on nextpage ;8 16 FALSE CHOICES

The solution to society's all our problems. There are good schools within large, problems is posed in bureaucratic school systems, and there are bad private terms of the marketplace, schools that ane free of bureaucratic oversight. and privatization plans People also forget that there are enormous bureau- are cropping up all over cratic structures in the corporate world and that the the place. On an indi- Catholic Church, which runs many schools, is highly vidual level, this counter- bureaucratic. All complicated organizations require a revolution has encour- certain amount of bureaucracy. aged people to look out Some bureaucratic regulations are also hard-won for themselves with little protections helping to guarantee equity around bilin- regard for others. gual education, affirmative action, and education for the Third, we have to con- physically challenged. It would be a step backward if sider whether there is a such regulations were thrown out or ignored. relationship between the government's willing- If you're opposed to private school"choke," what' s ness to abandon urban your alternative vision for improving the schools? schools and the fact that There's no one simple answer, but one can outline urban schools are increas- the elements of meaningful reform. We must restruc- ingly populated by Afri- ture our schools so parents and teachers have more say. can-Americans, Latinos, We must overhaul our curriculum to promote critical

Ai and Asian-Americans. thinking and a multicultural, anti-racist perspective. We Fourth, it's important .lust demand racial and gender equity. We must elimi- to look at how businesses nate tracking. We must change our testing and assess- and wealthier individu- ment so we assess thinking and learning, not just how als can directly profit from privatizing education. Since well one answers multiple choice questions out of most voucher plans pay far less than the per pupil cost context. We must improve the quality of teacher train- of schools, taxes might decrease in some districts. At the ing and have smaller class sizes. On a state level we same time, middle-class parents who are already send- should equalize funding for school districts. On a fed- ing their children to private schools will get government eral level, we need to substantially increase our funding aid to help pay the tuition. Finally, some businesses for education. The bottom line is our schools need more hope to make money by setting up private schools or resources. getting contracts for different educational services. Schools are one place where businesses aren't making Many of these reforms will cost a lot of money. as much money as they might want. Schools haven't shown they wisely use the money they already have. How can we be sure we're not throwing Doesn't private school "choice" allow lower-in- good money after bad? come families to send their kids to private schools The issue of money needs to be put in perspective. and therefore isn't it a move toward more equality? Most important, one needs to look at the amount of In the long run, abandoning public education will dollars being put into urban public schools versus only increase inequalities in education. A select few suburban schools. And you will see vast inequities. In low-income families might benefit from voucher plans, Wisconsin, for example, the suburban school district of but most poor people would still go to public schools Nicolet budgets $12,000 per year per student, while the and these schools would have fewer resources because Milwaukee public schools budget $6,600 per year. taxpayers' money would be going into private schools. You also need to look at the amount of money that's If voucher supporters really wanted to promote spent on a child not only in school, but in the family. equity, then they would give $10,000 to each child to You would find that in those suburban communities attend the school of their choice. And they would force where more money is spent on public education, there private schools to accept all students who apply, based is generally more money spent on the kids in their on a lottery system. But there's no "choice" plan private family life, whether it's for computers, or vaca- anywhere in the country that offers adequate money or tions, or summer camps, or private tutors, or sports safeguards against discrimination. programs. One reason those kids are succeeding is that there are a lot more resources spent on them. Bureaucracy acts like a sledgehammer and beats If we were a truly democratic society, we would the life out of schools. Wouldn't "choke" help break have a financial affirmative action program for poor this bureaucracy? kids. In other words, we would spend more money on We must reduce bureaucracy in our schools, there's their schools, relative to the amount spent on suburban no doubt about it. Developments toward site-based schools. Our overriding concern must be providing a management and grassroots control of schools are a quality education to all children. School "choice," on healthy step in that direction. the other hand, fosters more privileges for the already But we can't make bureaucracy into a scapegoat for privileged. 0 RETHINKING SCHOOLSSPECIAL EDITION Whittle'sRaidon PublicEducation By JonathanKozol

A "growing bunch of entrepreneurs," The New York Whittle's Edison Project Times reported ina 1991 education supplement, which, accordingto The "are Wall Street Journal, he suggesting that unabashedcapitalism can succeed" in intends to use as "anexpanded the delivery of education outlet" for advertisements carries all of this "where bureaucracy andaltru- a great ism have failed." If deal further. The schools will 1,-_ivate corporationscan achieve charge tuition of $5,500 what government roughly the same as thenational averagespent per cannot, the Times wenton, "why pupil in the public schools. should they not makemoney in the process?" In order to cut costs,Whittle proposes saving on teacher salaries A number of corporationsare now setting out to do by using volun- exactly that. Burger King teers, classroom aides andcomputerized instruction, has opened "Burger King and he proposes using the Academies," fully accreditedquasi-private high schools, students themselvesto do in 14 cities. IBM and some of the work of school custodians. Apple are contemplatingthe idea Twenty percent of starting schools-for-profit, of students will be grantedscholarships, although too. Educational Alterna- kids on scholarships the tives, a profit-makingfirm in Minneapolis will, for the mostpart, be in now runs a separate schools from those who public school for profitin Miami, under pay. In an inner-city contract to school, he says 95% of the Davie County, andrecently won contracts kids will be on scholarship, to run public while in suburban settings schools in Baltimore and only 1% may beon scholar- Duluth. "It's openseason on ship. Whittle marketing," says the appears untroubled by the certaintythat he corporation's president. is thereby guaranteeing But the most ambitiousplan to date for profit- segregated schooling. making schools Although Whittle promiseshe will not be selective are those announced in May1991 by in admissions, he does Chris Whittle. founder not address the likelihoodthat and chairman of WhittleCom- dux e who seek and win munications, a publisher of admission to his schoolswill be upscale, consumer-oriented self-selecting. His promise, magazines. Whittle has furthermore, is one hemay pioneered already in the saleof well circumvent by simple television news and advertising packages strategies like optingnot to to offer services for kids public schools. Now,"the impresario of with special needs. captive-audi- Whittle's agenda meshes ence marketing," as The NewYork Times describes him, nicely with the voucher plans to open 200 program advocated by the Bush profit-making schools by1996 and Administration in its foresees as many continued on next as 1,000 schools serving 2million page children within another decade. Although Whittleis the front man, the media conglomerate Time Warnerholds 38% of the stock in the Edison Project,as the venture is called, and has an option to obtain another30%. Another one-quarter ofthe stock is held bya British tabloid publisher, AssociatedNewspapers. Whittle's commercials for Snickers, BurgerKing and other productson Channel One, shown in schools, are required 10,000 viewing for almost 8million students daily more than a third of allteenagers in the nation's schools. U.S. News and World Reportnotes that Whittle is tapping "the potential forwidespread commercial penetration" of a student market inwhich more than $80 billion worthof products are sold yearly. At $157,000 for a 30-second ad double the advertising rate of prime-time network news Whittle grosses $630,000 from the four ads run each day, bringinghim gross annual revenues ofmore than $100 million. It is easy to see why advertisers are preparedto pay these rates. Under the contract that school districtssign, 90% of the children in a school must watch theprogram 90% of the time, each ofthe programsmust be watched in its entirety, a show cannot be interrupted,and the teacher does not have theright to turn it off. 20 18 FALSE CHOICES

added to the Whittle payroll,stated a few years ago that what he is proposing "isas different from our present system as capitalism is from socialism."Chubb, who now appears with regularityon network television, makes explicit his distaste forpublic schools, which he describes as "captives" of democracy. Once a handful of Whittle'sschools exist and, with the corporate fundshhas available, the first schools he opens are likelyto be danling creations they may well be exploitedas a further selling point for vouchers. Parents, hesays, who already "pay tax dollars" for the public schools,"are going to have to make a decision about whether theywant to pay twice." Whittle undoubtedly hopesthat the parents of the children he enrolls and the favorablepress he orches- trates will generatenational demand for the diversion of tax money into privateeducation. He has, moreover, shown alreadythat he is prepared to pour enormous sums ofmoney into lobbying cam- paigns. In California, wherethere has been strong education plan, "America 2000." Whittle'sties to Lamar resistance to his televisionpackage, Whittle hasspent Alexander, Bush's Education Secretary,have already some $640,000 to recruit high-powered been explored by journalists.Alexander, a friend of legislative lobbyists. How much might hesomeday spend to lobby Whittle's for some 20 years, initiallyserved on Whittle's Congress for a voucher system? board and also worked asa consultant to, and held stock The question, in a in, his corporation sense, is academic; Finn and Chubb andSchmidt are, in - a relationship from which he prof- effect, his lobbyists already. ited financially. (Having bought four Whittle Commu- Under the entrepreneurial model nications shares in 1988 for $10,000, Whittle represents, Alexander and his public schools will of wife then sold them back course be obliged to advertise in to Whittle for $330,000 five order to compete with Whittle's months later marketing, causing a a transaction that attracted only brief diversion of scarce funds from attention from the Senate during Alexander's teaching into selling. confirma- This is, moreover, a competition tion hearings.) that public educators, having neither marketing experiencenor capital, are Whittle's White House connectionswere rendered unlikely to win. With publiceducation starved for funds even more explicit when he hired longtimeBush and after a decade of Reaganiteattrition and withmany Reagan operative Chester Finn, Jr.to serve as his public schools in disrepair, adviser. Finn, according Whittle's initial boutique to The Boston Globe, is being offerings are likely to paid $1 million on a three-year appear spectacular. Whittle g,ontract. Finn, If the goals of Chubb and of course, is also close to Alexander Finn and Whittle should be and is generally realized, what might education acknowledged to be the author of someday look like in "America 2000." America? A vividanswer is given by Chubb, who is Whittle's announcement of the EdisonProject, more- now one of the seven members of the over, followed the release of "America 2000" Edison design by a mere team. Public schools, he has written, five weeks. While Bush, with the "must take who- help of Finn, was ever walks in the door." As a result, "they arguing the virtues of the voucher do not have system, which would the luxury of being able to select" open up the schooling market to the private the students whomay sector, be "best suited" to theirgoals. A private school, by Whittle also helped by Finn was staking out his first claim on that market. contrast, has the right to keepout students who may need "more slowly pacedinstruction." Under a voucher Benno Schmidt, the former presidentof Yale whom system, he says, instead of publicschools that try to Whittle recruited to head the EdisonProject, denies that he and Whittle are adversaries serve a large diversity of students inone setting, we of the public schools. would see "a constellation" of Schmidt insists that his "different schoolsserv- purpose is to offer a challenge ing different kinds of students and a model that can only help differently." Such schools, public schools. But he suggests, "might Whittle himself, in a careless target their appeals" to "chosen moment, made his real segments" of the population. intentions all too clear. "You haveto have a West Berlin for East Berlin to fall," he told Excellence in public schools,says Chubb, is under- The New York Times, mined because so "many of "and what we're really doing their students come from here is building West families that put little Berlin." This fascinating metaphor, or no emphasis on education." in which he likens The virtue of the voucher-funded the American common school schools that he pro- to the collapsing Stalinist poses, Chubb asserts, is that, like private monstrosity of East Berlin, is consistent schools today, with the lan- they would be attractiveto the kinds of kids whose guage used by many voucher advocates. JohnChubb, a parents are "informed," "supportive"and "encourage proponent of vouchers who, like Finn,has now been education." Children of the otherkind of parents- 21 RETHINKING SCHOOLSSPECIAL EDITION "parents who may cause problems" - are, hesays, "the and selling them ones most likely to drop out." to politicians and the public.They What would happento shrewdly see the drive for these children? "Largernumbers of... specialized public schools of choiceas an initial thrust inadequate but tolerable schools," he claims, wouldsoon emerge and would for now in presumably address the needs a campaign that will eventuate inan unfettered market of children from such system. families. Strip away the fancy language here and weare Old friends of mine in looking at social Darwinistscenario, a triage operation the "alternative schools"tell that will filter off the me with some confidence: "We'renot afraid of people fortunate and leave therest in such as Whittle. We have schools where children of something special hese thathe the "better" parents donot can't duplicate." I don't need to see them. think they understandthe Unlike his new employer, forces they are facing.No matter what the Chubb is honest toa fault. "special" If his goals should someday thing they do, theycannot do it with the flair be achieved, whatwe have and known as public education promotional momentum thata massive private will be granted anew defi- com- nition and a different role pany can generate; norcan they profit from the in our society. What isnow same regarded as a right will economies of scale. Businesscan and will construct come to be seen as justone more dramatic new school commercial product buildings, set upspace-age sci- or, more properly, a line of ence and computer centers, differentiated products. Whatevercommon bonds still target specific clienteles. hold together cities and Anything, moreover, thatprogressives have that communities are likelyto be unique can be appropriated is weakened or dissolved. (even if adulterated)and As parents scrambleto get repackaged to look better children into one of Whittle's in commercial form.Their schools or, for that pedagogy, where it matter, any other "voucherschool"-- they will, by seems of interest to the public,can necessity, view almost be copied and reprocessedto provide a Whittle every other parent as a rival. with a soupcon of school They will feel no obligation liberal inventivenessand charm. to raise tax-support foe Their teachers public schools attendedby their neighbors' can be weaned away by bettersalaries. children. Their administrators Instead of fighting for can be bought away as well.Busi- systematic excellence andequity ness can also mouth the for all, we will have taught words of people likePaul them to advance theirown Goodman, Paulo Freire, kids at whatevercost to other people's children. and John Holt asfrequently as To the extent that we do. liberal education writershave demurred at Whittle's plans, Whittle's enterprise,moreover, may be only the they have focused chiefly beginning. With the end on the dangers of commercialismin the classroom. But of the cold war and thescaling the commercial products back of militaryspending, military-industrial Whittle sells may be farless compa- nies like Honeywelland Raytheon may well pernicious than his non-commercialproducts: an atti- shift their tude, a set of values, horizons soon andstart to look at education a body of political beliefsas well. as an even Whittle disclaims better realm thanwar for future "penetration." any wish to sell his ideologiesto An children. He speaks ofeducation as a strictly education-industrial complexcannot fail to represent neutral and tempting prospect. a mechanical experience.As every teacher knows, how- Those who dismiss this ever, schools are never neutral.Consciously or not, they danger ought to listento the shape the soul and style statements made by business of the future adultpopulation. strategists and by their When business friends in power. "It istime," says Deputy enters education, therefore, itsells Education something more important Secretary David Kearns, than the brandnames of its the former CEO ofXerox, for products. It sells a business "to take ownershipof the schools." We way of looking at the worldand at do well to take him would oneself. at his word. A victory byGovernor Ironically, the road that Clinton in Novembermay postpone the arrival of leads to Whittle's enterprise train, but it will this may have been paved toa degree by liberals who have not derail it. Whittlehas shown his supported the idea of market business friends howeasily resistance choice and competitionin on the part of the public schools while local citizens can bedefeated by a mix of reassuring us thatwe can ward and savvy. Any doublespeak off any threat of private-school man who, in a mere threeyears, has won vouchers. In effect, they the power to indoctrinate have been saying: "It willgo thus far and no farther." eight million kids withadver- I see no reason why. tising every day is likelyto do very well at Once we accept theideology of breaking competition as the engine open the next market. of reform, we will behard- pressed to say why only "A radical reprivatizing certain people oughtto be of the public realmis now allowed to be competitors. well underway," If "parental option"is to be notes Pennsylvania StateUniversity the pedagogic gospel, who Professor Henry Giroux.Strategists at corporate is to say which optionsare to think be permitted and which tanks are already mobilizing will be disallowed?Already their resources for thenext ideologues at places like encounter. If we are serious, the Heritage Foundationare we should be mobilizing making just this too. 0 argument: If choice is good,who are you to draw the line at choicesonly you approve of? Jonathan Kozol is the author Right-wing intellectuals whomake this point of Savage Inequalitiesand are better other books on education. debaters than most educators This ankle is condensedfrom on the left; they are also "Whittle and the Privateers," infinitely more successful which appeared in theSept. at encapsulating their ideas 21,1992 issue of The Nation, 20 FALSE CHOICES 1/111=11/01111/111/MNINI Chris Whittle's Trojan Horse By Anthony J. Alvarado

The Edison Project! Like a latter-day Thomas Alva doesn't take a crystal ball to predict that Whittle princi- Edison, inventor of the incandescent bulb, a team headed pals, plans, and prototypes will be used increasingly to by departing Yale president Benno Schmidt and Whittle lobby for public funds. Communications chairman Chris Whittle promises to Financial realities will make it impossible to serve illuminate the educational landscape of America by studentpopulations similar to those in the publ ic schools, developing a blueprint for a franchised, profit-making contrary to Whittle's claims. The poorer the student, the national school system educating two million children fewer dollars he or she brings to the school, and the in 1,000 schools. Whittle and Schmidt say they can more at-risk the student, the more difficult and costly deliver significantly improved education to a the education. The incentive to maximize profits is representative group of American students at no more inherently at odds with the social responsibility borne than the average current per-pupil expenditure. by the public schools to educate such students. The Yet lurking in the shadows of this project are pressures of the marketplace will force the project to unspoken assumptions and negative incentives that will select those students who can pay, or to choose, subtly, inexorably create a dangerously undemocratic private those poor students who can succeed. school system, while eroding the character and resources Deepening the wedge between the educationally of U.S. public education. This threat is real enough to advantaged and disadvantaged, between rich and poor, warrant not only a skeptical eye, but concerted opposi- between whites and people of color, is contrary to the tion to the public-policy initiatives and the private- American dream. Inventing a system for the best and sector supports the Edison Project will require. ignoring the rest rends the social and cultural fabric in Whittle Communica- a nation struggling to fashion a new e pluribus unum. tions' present venture in Public education has been so criticized over the last Business is hardly the schools, Channel One, is a decade that many people will buy the argument that 12-minute current events business can save our schools. Our society needs to be long-awaited messiah. program replete with jean reminded that the private sector is heavily implicated in commercials. The program the present morass in education. The business sector The financial pages are appears to be a business publishes our textbooks, constructs our tests, andsup- success yet an educational plies our condoms. replete with stories of flop. No independent re- The Edison Project is not the proverbial breath of searcher or thoughtful com- fresh air in a bureaucratic educational mausoleum, and red ink, budget cuts, mentator has ever claimed business is hardly the long-awaited messiah. The finan- Channel One contributes to cial pages are replete with stories of hemorrhaging red plant closings and the kind of learning educa- ink, cuts in research and development budgets,exces- product recalls. tional reformers are de- sive executive compensation, plant closings and prod- manding teaching stu- uct recalls. It is preposterous to believe that profits can dents to use their minds, revolutionize American education.... solve complex problems, To reform our educational system, we must harness and use their imaginations creatively. What Channel U.S. ingenuity not for profit, but for excellence and One teaches is that there is money to be made in schools equity. Managing for the short-term bottom linemay without necessarily improving the quality of education. satisfy investors, but will it guarantee a more literate The hucksters are out to prove P.T. Barnum 's aphorism: and informed citizenry? Dispensing technological po- "There's a sucker born every minute." tions to starving school systems for public use andto In truth, the dollars needed to operate a chain of gullible parents for home consumption will keepmar- private schools, much less to make a profit, are simply keters and advertisers gainfully employed, but will it not there. Today private schools, charging significantly produce a skilled workforce for American industry? more, and parochial schools, charging less, are struggling Are franchised, Socratic soundbites a viable substitute to survive. For them there are no profits. Whittle's for thoughtful Socratic dialogues? business plan, despite his protestations, has to count on Caveat emptor, America! 0 eventual public subsidy through vouchers or tax incentives. Several members of his team, and Whittle's Anthony J. Alvadrado is Superintendent of Community School District Two in New York City. This article friend, Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, have originally appeared in the July 13,1992 edition of New been promoting private-school voucher schemes. It York Newsday. RETHINKING SCHOOLS 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 SPECIAL EDITION IsPublicSchool a Viable 'Choice' By AnnBastian Alternative?

Being asked to write an article against schoolchoice is a bit like beingasked to burn the critical scrutinyas a threat to public VFW meeting. American flag ata should also look education. Butwe You haveevery right to do it, but closely at the problems want to? After all, do you of choice and potentials choice is a bedrockAmerican value. programs that are strictlywithin the put-lic Applied to schools,it sounds great: schools. get to choose, deserving students and parents The most promising schools get chosen. examples of choice But what if this is curred in the first have oc- not the reality of schoolchoice? In category, within singlepublic school reality, school choicemeans very different districts. Theprograms most often cited things in in New York City, are East Harlem different contexts.From the Montclair, N.J., and many versions of choice, Mass. These Cambridge, we can construct threebroad categories. programs, while not perfect, First, there eral important suggest sev- are choiceprograms within a single features of a goodchoice model: public ,chooldistrict. These local, Choice is justone element in a plans seek to "controlled choice" reform strategy. comprehensive expand educationaloptions. Second, thereare interdistrict and Every school in thedistrict has become school plans. statewide public choice. a school of These seek toestablish a public place of schools market- School missions through competitionfor enrollment. are diverse, but havebeen devel- Third, thereare voucher plans that oped in complementary include private rather than competitiveways. schools. These seekto create an unrestricted Teachers are giventhe time, training, place of competing market- and power to public, private, and shape the schoolmission; parents Much of the debate parochial schools. voice. also have astrong over school choice hasfocused on vouchers. It is, Transportation costs after all, the keyeducational platform are covered by the of the Bush Parents and students district. Administration. Vouchersdeserve the most are given enoughinformation to make informedchoices. continued onnext page

BEST COPY AVAILABLE 22 FALSE CHOICES

Districts have secured significantly higher funding states (Minnesota, Massachusetts, Arkansas, and Ari- to sustain school improvement. zona) indicate that choice participants are dispropor- We should be fully aware, however, that even within tionately white and affluent. a single public school district, controlled choice is no If the interdistrict and statewide choice model gains miracle cure for education. Where it works, it is one tool a greater hold, its flaws will have a much graver impact. among others, and it only works well when there is a The dangers include: prior and steadfast commitment to equity, adequate Widening the gap between education "haves" funding, and internal school restructuring. and "have-nots."Instead of becoming a tool for School districts sho uld be particularly cautious about reform, this choice model rationalizes and accelerates choice programs that improve only a limited number of inequity. It allows already advantaged schools to cream schools. This is often the case in "magnet" programs students and resources from other districts, leaving where students apply to "specialty" schools that receive poorer schools and their students further depleted. extra resources and funding. When there are not enough Weakening the link between schools and local good schools to go around, choice is more likely to communities. In a large-scale marketplace model. create islands of excellence (or adequacy) than it is to schools are no longer bound by geographical or political stimulate improvement across the board. communities. Schools and students would become even We can see the stark result when we look at America's more removed from their neighborhoods. Community urban high school systems, where flagship academic control of schooling would be further eroded, making it magnet schools serving middle class students contrast even harder for communities of color and the poor to with desperately deprived neighborhood high schools fight for equity and reform. Taxpayers, voters, relatives for the working class and poor. and citizens would feel even less invested in education. The same problems are posed by charter schools, Promoting the marketing of schools. Where which are special, privately run schools under contract schools are competing for premium enrollments, the with school boards. Like magnets, charter schools are ability to attract students would depend as much on their promoted as models for innovations, but in the context ability to advertise as their capacity to educate. The of fiscal crisis and polarized resources, they are mom obvious temptation would be for schools to rely even likely to end up as isolated refuges for the lucky, the more heavily on standardized test scores and test-driven adamant, and by design, the privileged. instruction, the "steroids approach" to performance Unless our commitment to quality includes all enhancement. schools, we are building more lifeboats, not better ships. The debate over school choice will be with us for a The challenges for school choice are compounded in the long time, even if voucher plans and private school second category, which includes interdistrict and state- choice options are soundly defeated. In weighing the wide public school choice. In this marketplace model, problems and potentials, we need to keep in mind the every public school competes for enrollments, on the most basic and practical question for any choice pro- premise that enrollment gram: does it fix what's really wrong? dollars are sufficient in- There is nothing inherent in school choice that deals The question for any of centives for school inno- with key issues such as smaller class and school size, vation and improvement teacher training, multicultural curricula, teacher-parent the `choice' programs and that competition will collaboration, youth services, or equal and adequate reward the best. Eleven funding. Moreover, choice is deflecting attention from is whether they will fix states have implemented such key issues. what's really wrong. varieties of statewide pub- The hard reality is that there's no short cut to lic school choice. building good schools. Like parenting children, educat- The data thus far are ing children is based on human relationships, the quality sketchy, except for the fact that nowhere has interdistrict of which depends very much on the support systems choice ignited a revolution of school restructuring, surrounding the family and school. We have public parent engagement, and educational improvement as education because we need a community and govern- its proponents originally claimed. None of the statewide ment support system to sustain this enormous undertak- choice plans have included significant new resources ing, to make an unconditional investment in every child, for multiplying better schools or helping those at the to invest in the future as well as the present, to serve both bottom. The Massachusetts example (see the article, individuals and communities. "Robbing the Poor to Pay the Rich," on page 23) School enrollments are not chips to be brokered in a highlights the potential fiscal nightmare for poor dis- marketplace, public or private. Even in our post-indus- tricts as students transfer out. Moreover, few states trial consumer society, some choices are not about subsidize transportation costs for interdistrict transfers, buying and selling. 0 ensuring that the class barriers to choice remain high and that outcome remain skewed. Ann Bastian is a Senior Program Officer at the New World Overall, it appears that only a small number of Foundation, a college history teacher, and co-author of parents have opted for the open enrollment program, Choosing Equality, The Case for Democratic Schooling, often fewer than 1%. Moreover, data that exist for four Temple University Press,1986. RETHINKING SCHOOLSSPECIAL EDITION

Massachusetts:Robbing the Poorto Paythe Rich By Stan Karp

In Massachusetts, thecombination of economic recession and school "choice" poorer districts to richerones. reform offers a glimpse The schools of Brockton at how poorly designedpublic school "choice"can have been particularly combine with financial swamped by this combinedonslaught of "free market" pressures to push schoolsys- tems in disastrous directions. reform and"free market"recession. An NBA newsletter reported: "Brockton, just outside In September of 1991,Massachusetts followedyears of Boston, once boasted of state cuts, which had of being among thetop school systems in the nation. reduced education aid byover Not $500 million, by implementing anymore....More than 200Brockton educators have a public school "choice" been laid off this school scheme. Stripped of its year, and the average classsize rhetorical trappings, the plan is now up to 37. Assistant encouraged students to leave principals are teachingart, poor districts for rich ones. music, and physical education. "Participating districts"could choose to open their Some classes haveno doors to out-of-district coverage at all." On top of thesecutbacks, the "choice" students. The " home"or sending plan cost Brockton close districts (whether "participating"or not) were charged to $1 million. Over 100 a "tuition" roughly equivalent Brockton students enrolledin nearby Avon, where to the per pupil expenditure pupil spending in the receiving district.This means a child leaving runs up to two and a half timesthe a Brockton average. "For district with a $4000per pupil average expenditure for every youngster we are losing, we will be paying three times what one with a $7000 figuretook $7000 of the home the state givesus for district's funds with that youngster,"says one school official. himmore than the homedistrict These gross inequities would have gotten if thestudent had stayedput. led the state to revisethe This bizarre formula had funding formula after therust year of the plan'sopera- predictable effects. About tion. "In Massachusetts," 45 districts signedon to receive students. About said one Republicanlegisla- 830 tor, "we really perverted the students jumped. Just six notion of what choicewas poorer districts paid about half all about." But while the of the total tuitiontransfers, while new formula caps the tuition seven wealthier transfers to wealthier districts districts took in about 75%of the total. The plan had and partially reimburses no sending districts for lost aid, provisions for transportationaid or parent outreach the basic designandthe basic injusticeof theplan remains unchanged. services and drew littleparticipation frompoor and It's still a siphon for drainingstudents and resources minority students. In factthe scheme is so unfairthat a from number of well-off districts poor districts to wealthierones, and it still does abso- at first refused to signon, lutely nothing to improve fearing the impacton neighboring systems. However, education in thepoorer dis- the number of districts tricts. In that regard, the buying into theprogram has Massachusetts plan isnot a perversion "of what choiceis all about," but steadily increased, andpredictions are that thenumber an all-too- of students transferring accurate example. 0 in the second year couldrise to between 3,000 and 5,000 students, taking $15 millionto Stan Karp teaches English $25 million with them in and Journalism at J.F.K.High aid that will largely flowfrom School in Paterson, NJ.

fr....; 6 BEST COPYAVAILABLE 24 FALSE CHOICES Chicago: Public School `Choice' and Inequality By Jonathan Kozol

In the following selection from Savage Inequalities, is not true, of course, because the printed information author Jonathan Kozol talks about class and racial won't be read, or certainly will not be scrutinized inequities surrounding proposals for school "choice." aggressively, by parents who can't read or who read He refers to South Loop Elementary in Chicago, a very poorly. But, even if a city could contrive a way to citywide magnet "fine arts" school built at the insis- get the basic facts disseminated widely, can it dissemi- tence of residents of a condominium project with many nate audacity as well? Can it disseminate the limitless white, affluent families. Children from a nearby low- horizons of the middle class to those who have been income public project, Hilliard Homes, are not allowed trained to keep their eyes close to ground? into the school until third grade. Before then, the People can only choose among the things they've children from the project go to a "temporary branch heard of. That is one problem that a "choice" plan must school" in a "small, prefabricated metal building sur- confront. But it is no less true that they can only choose rounded on three sides by junkyards." the things they think they have a right to and the things they have some reason to believe they will receive. The conflict around South Loop Elementary in People who have forever been turned down by Chicago helps to illustrate some of the reasons for the neighborhoods where they have looked for housing and reservations that black leaders sometimes voice about by hospitals where they have looked for care when they the prospect of a fully implemented plan for "schools of were ill are not likely to have hopeful expectations when choice" a notion strongly favored by the White it comes to public schools. House and, particularly, by Mr. Bush. If the children of The White House, in advancing the agenda for a the Hilliard project are successfully excluded from the "choice" plan, rests its faith on market mechanisms. magnet school across What reason have the black and very poor to lend their the street, how much credence to a market system that has proved so obdurate `Choice' plans threaten to harder will it be to get and so resistant to their pleas at every turn? Placing the those children in to mag- burden on the individual to break down doors in finding compound the present net schools in other sec- better education for a child is attractive to conservatives tions of the city? And because it reaffirms their faith in individual ambition fact of racial segregation will those children and autonomy. But to ask an individual to break down "choose" to go to doors that we have chained and bolted in advance of his with the added injury of "schools of choice" if it arrival is unfair. caste discrimination. is made clear they are There are conscientious people who believe that not wanted? This is an certain types of "choice" within the public schools can example of the ways help to stimulate variety and foster deeper feelings of that people may be empowerment in parents. There are also certain models taught to modify and to in East Harlem in New York, for instance which restrict their choices. suggest that this is sometimes possible; but these models The parents, of course, are the ones that also place a high priority on not conditioned already by excluding children of the less successful and less a lifetime of such les- knowledgeable parents and, in the East Harlem situation, f sons, may not even need they are also models that grew out of social activism, ai to have their dreams fur- and their faculty and principals continue to address the ther restricted. The en- overarching inequalities that render their experiment ergy to break out of their almost unique. Without these countervailing forces isolation may have at- and they are not very often present "choice" plans of rophied already. the kind the White House has proposed threaten to School boards think compound the present fact of racial segregation with the that, if they offer the added injury of caste discrimination, further isolating same printed informa- those who, like the kids at Hilliard Homes, have been tion to all parents, they forever, as it seems, consigned to places nobody would have made choice choose if he had any choice at all. 0 equally accessible. That RETHINKING SCHOOLS SPECIAL EDITION 25 When `Choice' Equals No Choice By Herbert Kohl

The first experiment with choice and vouchers that I heard about took place in the Alum Rock School District in San Jose, Calif., in the early 1970s. The district, which served many children of color and was experiencing major failure, was to be a model of public school choice. Parents would be given vouchers cover- ing the cost of their children's education, which could be redeemeu at any school in the district. The experiment fell apart in less than three years for the following reasons: The few decent schools were immediately over- subscribed and the communities they served didn't want to give up any places to outsiders. The worst schools stayed just as they were and became residue schools for students who couldn't get into the schools of their choice. A No training or materials were provided, nor were physically depressing sites rebuilt. The teachers, community groups, and parents who wanted to create innovative schools to create genuine choices were denied access to funds or facilities. A combination of teacher organizations and ad- r ministrators made sure that no person or school no matter how dismal was evaluated or forced to change or declare itself out of business. Public school choice in Alum Rock, and in many other districts I have observed over the years, became no F choice at all for the majority of under-served people. Business as usual was restored to the district. There was failure without accountability. If public schools are to work, those who work in them must admit that many children have been failed by their efforts. Unless we want the entire fabric of public education to be unravelled by private school choice, If public schools are to new ideas and new life must enter our schools. Short of that, we face vouchers and private schools work, those who work in that accept students at their whim. The children of the poorest and least empowered will be abandoned to them must admit that many residue schools that function as mere warehouses. CI children have been failed Herbert Kohl is author of a number of books on education, including 36 Children and his most recent books, I Won't by their efforts. Learn from You, and From Archetype to Zeitgeist

BEST COPY AVAILABLE 26 FALSE CHOICES School Vouchers continued from page 5 Moe consequently look to the marketplace to create and Moe fail to prove that private schools do a better job excellence in education. than public ones. Scholars have raised a number of questions about the data Chubb and Moe relied upon, Problems with Formulations including whether a brief multiple-choice test adequately To summarize their argument, Chubb and Moe documented student performance and whether the private assert thatpublic schools provide inadequate instruction school sample over-represented elite preparatory because they lack the autonomy necessary to create schools." Although many Black and Latino families effective education; they lack autonomy because they have avoided the degradations of miserable public are bureaucratic; and they are bureaucratic because schools by enrolling their children in Catholic politics shapes them. Thus, they claim the way to create institutions, the mere fact of private status obviously effective schools is to substitute the market for politics. does not confer excellence on schools. Thus it is hardly The clarity of their argument and the simplicity of their surprising that recent data on achievement in solution, apparently buttressed by the analysis of mas- Milwaukee's Catholic schools point out a vast chasm in sive data bases, may seem persuasive. But problems student achievement between those serving high-income with their formulations abound. and low-income neighborhoods, and they suggest racial First of all, Chubb and Moe assume that A Nation at differences in performance that closely parallel those of Risk, along with less influential reports of the 1980s, the Milwaukee Public Schools." provides such telling evidence of educational malfea- Even setting aside problems with their data, Chubb sance that drastic measures are justified."Serious ques- and Moe's claims far outstrip their findings. Despite tions might be raised about the test results marshalled to their argument that the autonomy they associate with document this state of affairs. It is questionable whether private schools profoundly affects student performance, standardized test scores can accurately gauge the nation's in their model autonomy accounts for a tiny percentage educational health, a of variance in achievement. Thus as scholars Gene point Chubb and Moe Glass and DeWayne Matthews note, "A school that The first choice program themselves make in moves from the 5th percentile to the 95th percentile on another context. autonomous organisation would be expected ... to climb provided white students in Even assuming a month or so in grade equivalent units on a standardized Virginia public funds to such scores have achievement test."" Further, Chubb and Moe cannot value, the strategy of even truly determine whether greater autonomy creates attend private academies A Nation at Risk to better students or whether better students permit more document both declin- autonomous schools." In addition, they cannot demon- in order to avoid attending ing scores within the strate that higher achievement in private schools sterns United States and un- from the way they are organized or from the select group public schools with Blacks. favorable compari- of students who attend them." Finally, they fail to sons of scores with confront the hypothesis that the real issue is not au- other countries hardly withstands close scrutiny. Its tonomy, but wider reliance on an academic curriculum authors fail to note that their data suggest only a modest in private schoolssomething that can be replicated in decline in scores since the1960s. They do not acknowl- public institutions." edge the upward trajectory of scores on several tests in the 1970s and 1980s, and they also ignore tests that Overstating Private School Advantages showed no decline." Further, the report inappropriately Chubb and Moe also overstate the advantages of contrasts the achievement of 12th graders in the United private schools in supporting teacher professionalism. States with those of other countries, since the groups are Principals tend to have greater power in private schools, not comparable. Most students in the United States but it scarcely follows that teachers are more able to act reach the 12th grade, and a high percentage progresses as professionals. Unprotected by unions, the jobs of beyond. In many other countries only an elite group private school teachers are precarious. This vulnerability completes high school. Thus international comparisons can exert greater constraints on teachers' autonomy beneath the collegiate level have limited utility.'2 than the bureaucratic regulations common to public Lack of evidence indicating "a rising tide of medi- schools. In addition, there is nothing professional about ocrity," to use the unfortunate phrasing of A Nation at most private school teachers' salaries. Compensation Risk, in no way suggests that children of color are typically too meager to support a family has meant that receiving an adequate education. But it undercuts the private school positions have been most acceptable to justification of a market-based educational system for the independently wealthy, to members of religious all based on the assumption that nothing could be lost by orders, and to families with more than one wage earner." dismantling public schools. More important, Chubb continued on next page 4, RETHINKING SCHOOLS SPECIAL EDITION HOCK/KONOPAcKt LABOR CARTOONS SO_ 4),A10/4C 41111

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Overblown bureaucracies, of course, dolimit institutional change andabsorb huge financial Movement of the1960s, are the real little direct resources for vative complaint. objects ofconser- educational service.Chubb and Moe These have promoted rectly argue that cor- bilingual education, desegregation, many private schoolsare relatively free and education ofthe handicapped, of bureaucracy, institutionalizing a yet Catholic schools,which enrolla modicum of equityin public schools high percentageof non-public as a responseto the demands of States, are certainly students in theUnited those traditionally bureaucratic institutions. denied power. Thatsuch regulations broadly, the organization More cannot adequately of the private secure equality ofeducational opportunity fails to confirm sector as a whole mean that the market does not Chubb and Moe'snotion that bureaucracy can do any better. characterizes publicrather than private Chubb and Moeassume that the market Intricately bureaucratized institutions. quality education will create corporations produce for everyone percentage of the a high of choice. Yet through themechanism nation's wealth.Business influence, choice certainlyhas not accomplished in fact, hadmuch to do with this in the private the developmentof sector of theeconomy. If the affluent bureaucratic, centralizedsystems of public can choose healthspas in the Caribbean Recent developments, education.° homes, the and gracious however, holdout the possibility poor must chooseinadequate health that public schools, delapidated housing. care and like innovativecorporations, can To the extentthat those with balance bureaucracywith autonomy?' limited resourceshave won forms offer scant Chubb and Moe not been guaranteed of protection, ithas attention to reformefforts in by the play of communities that have many the market, butby moved toward governmental regulation.The conservative school-based management.' various forms of deregulation agenda of over the past decadehas eroded those Further, Chubband Moe protections andgreatly increased exaggerate when they the disparitybetween suggest that publicschools are rendered the wealthy andthe poor in the the variety of incoherent by system of education United States. Amarket political influencesthat shape them. is merely pluralistic notion Their lation and promises an extension of deregu- ofeducational politicsfails to recognize to compound social that throughmost of the 20th In the market inequities. Century schoolswere system promoted byFriedman, Chubb elite-dominated.Bureaucratic and Moe, and structures, in part,were conservative politicaland corporate designed by elitesat the turn of the leaders, public century to remove taxation wouldguarantee relatively schools frompopular political modest vouchersworth the control 1' Yetaltered same amount forevery power relationscan inspire bureaucratic student in eachstate. Families, protect the rights of measures that would then choose acting asconsumers, minorities mid thepoor. Thus recent the schools theirchildren would bureaucratic regulations, attend. But unlikethe Milwaukee engendered by theCivil Rights program wherea continued on nextpage 28 FALSE CHOICES

lottery determines admission, schools may choose as families can supplement the amount of the voucher they well. Chubb and Moe are adamant about this: are given. Friedman's version of the plan would allow Schools must be able to define their own missions individual families the right to add their own cash to a and build their own programs in their own ways, and voucher. Chubb and Moe would allow local districts to they cannot do this if their student population is thrust augment the value of vouchers through increased local on them by outsiders. They must be free to admit as taxation. In either case, the wealthy would have greater many or as few students as they want, based on what- choice than the poor. ever criteria they think relevantintelligence, interest, Advocates of an educational marketplace, then, motivation, behavior, special needsand they must be have won a significant ideological victory by successfully free to exercise their own, informal judgement about labelling their program "choice" rather than the more individual applicants.24 neutral sounding "voucher." While no one in their right mind would deny families educational options,"cho ice" Choosing the Advantaged obscures the reality that those who come from It is in their interest to choose those students who are economically empowered families are those most likely already high achievers, and it is in their interest to be chosen by good schools. As in the marketplace especially for smaller schools to accept those whose writ large, what one can purchase depends on how much currency is brought to the transaction. Choice also obscures how the already advantaged would benefit financially at the expense of the less fortunate. A reduced tax rate would provide the well-to- do with a voucher for part of their tuition for private `Choice' and schools. This contrasts favorably with the current situation which requires them to pay higher taxes for Public School public schools in addition to relying solely on their own resources if they choose private institutions. Such a tax advantage, obvious in the Friedman plan, would exist in Reform the Chubb and Moe variant as well since wealthy By Robert Peterkin districts' decisions to raise taxes above the lower limit would be offset by the abolition of federal and state- level taxation that redistributes resources to poordistricts. The following is excerpted from remarks by Robert Peterkin before the For the poor, in contrast, the baseline vouchers would be U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor in November 1990. difficult to add onto, creating a situation reminiscent of Peterkin, who at the time was superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Southern Jim Crow education where vast differences Schools, testified on the Milwaukee public schools and the private school existed between per pupil expenditures for Black and "choice" program in Milwaukee under which several hundred low- White schools. income families received $2.500 in taxpayer money to send their children Under Jim Crow it was common for African to a non-sectarian private school. Peterkin is a senior lecturer at Harvard Americans to supplement meager public funding by University, where he heads the urban superintendency program. constructing schoolhouses with their own donated labor and paying teachers out of their inadequate incomes.25 The most damaging myth [about choice] is the one being advanced by But Blacks could not rectify these inequities despite the so-called free market educational experts. They contend that if poor extraordinary sacrifices. As the scholar W.E.B. DuBois parents are allowed to send their children to private schools at public maintained, if some of these starved schools managed to expense the competition will force the public schools to improve. Indeed, achieve excellence through unusual efforts, greater at a national forum on choice Tuesday morning in Washington , former funding would have made such excellence far more Governor Pete Du Pont said the Milwaukee choice program had forced widespread.'' the entire Milwaukee school system to turn itself upside down to try to A voucher system of education can provide support improve. for long-established community-based education pro- That, Mr. Chairman, is a lie. grams that have effectively served children of color on Even before my arrival two and a half years ago, the Milwaukee Public shoestring budgets. But as the failure of the Juanita Schools Board of Directors made the decision to reform the 150 schools Virgil Academy suggests, the notion that choice would under its jurisdiction. ... create a nation of small, effective schools is a construc- Before there was ever a murmur about choice, this district had moved tion as mythical as the notion that the market can to downsize and decentralize its bureaucracy, to empower teachers and maintain a nation of shopkeepers. A high level of schools, to activate parents, to rewrite a dormant curriculum, to involve capitalization and economies of scale would be neces- the greater community in the education of its children, and to establish sary to construct buildings, to conduct advertising cam- high-level and very public standards of accountability. paigns, to maintain staffing with an unpredictable num- Choice had nothing, I repeat, nothing, to do with those efiurts which 5er of students, and to make do with the unsupplemented were begun by individuals of good will who held close to their hearts a vouchers those without wealth would bring. A likely burning desire to provide an education of excellence and equity to all result would be educational versions of fast-food con- children. glomerates, with scripted teacher behaviors similar to RETHINKING SCHOOLSSPECIAL EDITION

the standardizedpatter of McDonald's Like 19th Century order clerks. itedby the poor and charity schools,such schools would people of color." Yetsince the early compose the bottomtier of an educational 1980s regressivetax reform, diminished based on privilege. hierarchy and a benign attitude social services, toward the flight of Aside from the jobs beyond U.S. manufacturing inequities associatedwith a market- borders havesignificantly increased based approachto schooling, such the disparity betweenthe wealthy and fundamental issues a strategy raises by 1983, according the poor. Already of educationalpurpose. Should to historian Robert taxpayers contribute cumulative impact of Weisbrot, "the to financing schoolsthat have no Reagan's policiesinvolved a $25 public accountabilityno matter how objectionable billion transfer indisposable income might find their many off to the richest from the less well- goals? Should thepublic subsidize fifth of Americans, prep schools, schools elite number of poor people and a rise in the run for profit, schoolswith racist from 29.3 millionin 1980 to 35.3 ideologies, andschools run by million."" future workers? corporations to train There are Should familiesbe regardedas now signs that thestrategy of entrepreneurial unitscharged with suburbanization is yieldingto urban gentrification children's educational maximizing their professional jobs in as opportunities? Thismarket ethos the servicesector replace blue- ignores anysense of responsibility collarpositions. Historian for other children's Kenneth Jacksonhas indicated education, anyobligation for that rising fuel,land, mortgage, education, any community control of along with changes and housingcosts, commitment toschools as sites of in familyorganization, make democratic discourse,any need for the suburban living lessdesirable." In addition, curriculum new common is a major incentive privatization some educatorsare forging out of the for the affluent tural works and cul- where inadequate to resettle in cities political strugglesof the diverse revenues are starving who have shaped peoples public services. the United States. Increasingly in cities,where deindustrialization reduced federal and aid have devastatedpublic spaces, Conservatives Exik urban professionalsare paying only for It is no small Rbate Differences that benefit those services irony that somany conservatives have themselves. Theseenclaves of privilege accused themulticultuzalist support privatecountry clubs, private when their movement of balkanization security guards, own policies have private road repairservices, and private the teal differences profoundly exacerbated Adding to such schools?' that exist betweengroups in the services, choice isa way of subsidiz- United States. ing urbanprofessionals' taste Certainly Republicanare not solely for private educationin responsible fora long history of environments where governmental policies even the best publicschools do not that havedeveloped suburban always accommodate preserves for middle- them. Althoughvirtually every class whitesat the expense of city hasmagnet schools which urban economiesinhab- disproportionately continued on nextpage 5 2 30 FALSE CHOICES

concentrate school districts' resources on college pre- on elite cultural activities and institutions that serve paratory programs for middle-class children, they typi- themselves. Further, Reich notes that the much bally- cally practice at least a rudimentary form of equity that hooed support of corporations for putschools is less requires some degree of racial balance, and they cannot than what they receive in the tax breaks they have guarantee admission to all white middle-class appli- successfully won.' Choice in giving, like choice in cants. As choice invites suburbanites back to the city to selecting private schools, provides a noor case that enjoy their private pursuits at the expense of reinvigo- private spending will support public goods. rated public services, they will displace and further None of this is to say that public schools are beyond marginalize the poor. reproach. If they adequately served children of color, In the conservative imagination the divestment of interest in "choice" would be limited and efforts to state redistributive functions does not terminate secure multicultural education unnecessary. Typically, responsibility for the less fortunate. Rather, such students in public schools have suffered curricula that responsibility becomes voluntary, an act of private are ethnocentric and unquestioningly nationalistic. They choice. Much, in fact, is made of the public spiritedness also have experienced wide variation in academic quality of the affluent who voluntarily participate in contributing based on their race and class. Author Jonathon Kozol, to the common good. Enormous publicity, for instance, for instance, poignantly describes such grave inequities has attended the offer of New York businessman Eugene between public schools, underscoring the obvious Lange and several others to guarantee college unfairness of favoring the already advantaged with scholarships to low-income school children, as well as disproportionate resources." Thus it might make sense to provide various supportive academic and counseling to restrict choice programs to the underserved.34 services to see them through high school. Oddly, we hear little about the federally funded TRIO programs Opposition to Affirmative Action that realized such practices worked decades ago. They This clearly is not what the Bush administration has have a long record of demonstrated success limited only in mind, however, since it steadfastly has opposed by funding that is inadequate to reach more than a small affirmative action. The Republican administration and percentage of the eligible population." Massive federal conservative groups like the Landmark Legal Center for support of such initiatives, in fact, is paramount because Civil Rights, which defended the Milwaukee Choice Lange and a few other philanthropists devoted to equity Program in the courts while it opposed the 1990 Civil are exceptions. As policy analyst Robert Reich has Rights Act, merely view the Milwaukee program as an pointed out, the wealthy contribute a lower percentage opening gambit in an effort to institute vouchers for of their incomes to charitable purposes than the poor, everyone." This agenda is explicit in a proposal for and what they do give is disproportionately dispensed California initiated by the Excellence through Choice in RETHINKING SCHOOLSSPECIAL EDITION

Education League. The league's nearly successful ef- Crusade: American Education,1945-1980 (New York: Basic Books, fort to place a state-widemeasure on the November 1983). 1992 ballot mandating 4. See especially National Commissionon Excellence in Education, vouchers for all was articulated A Nation at Risk: The knperative for Educational Reform (Washington, initially as a measureto serve low-income families D.C.: Government Printing Office,1983). only." 5. John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe,Politics, Markets, and If public education has America's Schools (Washington D.C.:The Brookings Institution, 1990). inadequately fulfilled its 8. See, fix instance, The MilwaukeeJournal, July 23, 1990. responsibilities to educate all, 7. kekvauku Sentinel, October 20, market-driven educa- p. 8. 1990, p. 7; October 22, 1990, tional enterprise cannot fulfill them. At best thepopu- 8. New York Times, June 12,1991,p. B9. larity of choice 9. Wisconsin DPI Bulletin 2(August among those with the least privilege 18, 1991)73. The moat dramatic drop in returning students took place should send a powerfulmessage to public school edu- at the Harambee Community School where only 19 returned ofthe 79 non-graduating participants. cators that the common school formany remains a See Ulivaukee Jdurnel, October3. 1991, p. A21. 10. A Nation at Risk: The iniperative kr myth. It highlights the needto support a multicultural Educational Reform. agenda that widens public 11. See Lawrence C. Stedman and CarlF. Mesa*, 'The Test discourse on equity issues Score Decline Is Over: Now Midi-PhiDelta Kappan (November and transforms public 1985): 204-210; Lawrence C. Stedmanand Marshall S. Smith, 'Weak education in ways that enable Arguments Poor Data, Simplistic people of color to exercise Recommendations,"in Beatrice and co-ownership of society. Yet Ronald Gross, eds. The Great SchoolDebate (New York: Touchstone, the very idea of schools thateducate people in common 1965): 83-105. -drawing on the richness of 12. Stedman and Smith, p. 90. diversity is antithetical 13. See, for example, Peter H. Rossi to the intent of the conservative and James D. Wright; 'Best leaders and foundations Schools - Better DiscipT .aor Better Students? A Review of High advocating choice. School Adtievement, AmericanJournal of Education 91 (November 1862): 82; comments on John Witte'sunpublished paper presented Early in the 20th Century 1990 meeting of American Political at corporate elites claimed to Science Association, Educakn Week, November 14, 1990, take the schools out ofpolitics by creatingexpert-run p. 20. centralized and bureaucratic 14. MiAvauke -banal, August 1,1991:1,8. public schools. Their de- 15. Gene V. Glass and De WayneA. Matthews, 'Are Data Enough?' mand for efficiency and Educatidned Researcher20 (April1991)26. impartial expertise maskeda 18. Ibid., p. 25. politically motivated effortto replace working-class 17. On this Issue see Richard influence over education Mumame. "Evidence, Analysis,and with their own influence. Unanswered Questions,' HarvardEducational Review 51(November Today Chubb and Moe 1981):485-487. articulate the position ofcorpo- 18. Education Week, November rate elites who rail against the 14,1990, p. 20; also see Doulas bureaucratic schools their Whims, Do Private Schools ProduceHigher Levels of Academic Achievement?' in Thomas James and predecessors were so influentialin creating, oncemore Henry M. Levin, eds., Public claiming they want to take Dolan lion Private Schools: the Caseof Tuition Tax Crodits (Philadel- schools out of politics. Yet phia: Temple University Press,1983), pp. 230-231. their desire to open them 19. See Peter W. Cookson, Jr.and Cardin* Hodges Persell, to the marketplace is aL.,oan Preparing for PowkAmtwica's Elite inherently political Boarding Schools (Now York: strategy. It will enable themore Basic Books, 1985), pp. 84-93. affluent to free themselves from the yoke of all 20. David Tyadc, The One BestSystem: A History of American the Urban Education (Cambridge: legislative and legal safeguardspeople have won through iv. Harvard University Press. 1974),part the freedom struggles of 21. Thomas J. Peters and Robert the 1960s. It furthermorewill H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of free the rich from all public E_XCeief)CO: Lessons from America'sBest Run Corporations (New educational responsibility, York: Harper and Row), p.318. striking a major blow against 22. Richard Elmore and Associates, the current multiculturalist Restructuring Schools: The effort that seeks a radical Next Generation of EducationalReform (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, expansion of democracy and 1990). a reinvigorated vision of community. The implementa- 23. Tyack, The One Best System,pp. 132-133. tion of "choice" would 24. Chubb and Moe, pp. 221-222. be a victory fornarrow class interest over community, 25. James Anderson, The Educationof 131acks in the South, 1861b accelerating the drastic 1935 (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1988). maldistribution of opportunitythat exists today. 28. W.E.B., 'Pechstein andPeciuniff, The Crisis 36 (September 1929)314. 27. Policies have included federal highway subsidies, sepregationist FHA loans, zoning ordinances, Robert Lowe is an editor ofRethinking Schools and and legal standing for restrictive teaches at National-Louis covenants. See Kenneth T. Jackson,Crabgrass Frontier: The University. A version of this Suburbanizatidn of the United States(New York Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 293. Ira Katzneison essay appears in Theresa Perry and and Margaret Weir, Schooling James Fraser, eds., AN: Class, Rau and the Decline for Freedom's Plow: Teaching fora of the Democratic Ideal (Berkeley: Multicultural Democracy, University of California Press 1985), (Routledge, 1993). p. 217. 28. Robert Weisbrot. Freed=Bound: A History of Anierka's Citdl Rights Movement (New York:Plume,1991), p. 302. 29. Jackson, Cnabg-ass. Frontier,pp. 297-303. 30. See, for instance, Robert B. Reich, 'Secession of the Successful,' The New York TimesMagazine, January 20, 1991, p.42. Footnotes: 31. See Clvonide of Higher Education,July 3,1991, p. A17. 32. Reich, 'Secession of theSuccessful,' pp. 43, 44. 1. Milton Friedman, 'The Role of M. Jonathan Kozol, Savageinkualitied: Children in America's Government In Education, in Robert Schools (New York: Crown A. Slow, ed., Econdmks and thePublic Interest (New Brunswick: Publishers, 1991). Rutgers University Press, 1955). 34. From advocacy of choiceprograms with redistributive goals, John E. Coons and Stephen D. see 2. The most notorious instance ofthis occurred in Prince Edward Sugarman, Education by Chace:The County where public schools cue for Fan* Control (Berkeley:University of California Press, were dosed for five years. Blacks toowere 1978), p, 31; Henry M. Levin, offered vouchers, but committedto desegregation they refused and 'Educations/ Choice and the Painsof children received no formal education manyDemocracy; In James and Levin, Pubic during that period. See J. Hanoi* pp. 38-27. Dollars for Private Schools, Wilkinson III, From Brown to Bakke: The Suprwne Court and School 35. The Landmark Legal Center Integration, 1954-1978 (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1979), pp. 4 funded In part by the Bradley 913-100. Foundation-kfaraukeeJourne/, July 23, 1990,pp. 1,4; for its 3. See Charles Murray, Losing Ground: opposition to the 1990 Civil RightsAct, see New York Times, October Maslow Social Poky, 1950-21, 1990, p. 15. 1960 (New York Basic Books, 1984);Diane Ravitcti, The Troubled 38. Education Week, September18,1991, p. 1. 5 32 FALSE CHOICES

esou es The most InfluIntial work that develops a An eloquent deans* ofegalitarian public theoretical argument insupport of vouchers: education: Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, by John Savage Inequalities: Children E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe, in America' s Schools, Washington, D.C., The by Jonathan Kozol, New York, Brookings Institution, 1990. Crown, 1991. Collections of essays that Two useful critiques ofPolitics, Markets, provide various and America's Schools perspectives on the "choice"Issue: : Public Dollars for Private "School Organization and Student Schools: the Case of Achievement: A Tuition Tax Credits, ThomasJames and Henry M. Review Essay," by David Hogan,Educational Theory Levin, eds., Philadelphia,Temple University Press, 42 (Winter 1992): 83-105 1983. Politics, Markets and America'sSchools: The Fal- lacies of Private School Choice and Control in AmericanEducation, Wil- Choice, by Albert Shanker, liam H. Clune and John F. American Federation of Teachers, Witte, eds., Bristol, Penn., 1991. Falmer Press, 1990, 2 volumes. Choice in Education: Potential An argument for regulatedvoucher plans: and Problems, by William Lowe Boyd and HerbertWalberg, eds., Berke- Education By Choice: The Case forFamily Control, ley, McCutchan, 1990. by John E. Coons and StephenD. Sugarman, Berkeley, False Choices, Why School Vouchers Threaten 0 ur University of California Press,1978. Children's Future, RobertLowe and Barbara Miner, eds., a special 32-page edition A critique of vouchers of Rethinking Schools, based on the devel- Milwaukee, Wisc., Rethinking opment of a democratic theoryof education: Schools, Ltd., 1992. Democratic Education, by AmyGutmann, Princeton, Princeton University Press,1987, Chapter 2. Jv 1 RETHINKING COLUMBUS Essays and resources One copy $4.00 +$2 postage Prices 10 - 49 $2.00 + shipping Single copies: $3.00 each + $2 shipping & handling for teaching about the 500th anniversary of Columbus's 50 199 $1.50 +shipping 10-100 copies: $2.00 each + shipping 200 - 999 $1.00 +shipping 100+ $1.50 each + shipping arrival in the Americas. 1000+ 50( + shipping 500+ $1.00 each + shipping Rethinking Columbus is a special 96 page * Shipping costs add $8 for 4 -100, Shipping costs are $8 for the first 4 to 100 copies ; add $6 edition of Rethinking Schools that provides a and $6 pr 100 thereafter. Bulk orders per 100 thereafter. Please write or call for rates for Alaska. are for s000ls and school districts, or critical perspective on the Columbus Hawaii and international shipping. Bulk orders are for for interial use by organizations. They schools and school districts, or for internal use by organi- quincentenary. Itis published in collaboration are not to be sold publidy or resold zations. They are not to be sold publicly or resold for profit. with the Network of Educators on Central for profit. Book stores and distributors Book stores and distributors please contact us for prices. America and includes essays, interviews, stories, please contact us for pricing information. Name poetry, a bibliography and a resource listing. Over 100,000 copies sold! School/Org.

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Mail to: Rethinking Schools Payment enclosed 71 Iwill use a purchase order 1001 E. Keefe Ave.Milwaukee, WI 53212 Milwaukee, WI53212 414-964-9646 L414. 964-9646 Mail to: Rethinking Schools 1001 East Keefe Ave.

An Urban Educational Journal RETHINKINGSCHOOLS "Rethinking Schools is aE 1 terrific publication the only thing Order Form $12.50 (1 yr.) Individual subscription' I've seen that cuts right through all $20 (2 yr.) Individual subscription' the jargon and addresses $25 (1 yr.) Institutional subscription the real issues." $8 (1 yr.) Student, unemployed $2.50 sample copy Jonathan Kozo! Information on bulk order author of Savage Inequalities * Paid by individual and not by institution and other books on education Name Subscribe to stay informed about crucial Phone (day) educational issues. To learn what other teachers Phone (evening) are doing in their classrooms. And to make sure you get each issue promptly. Address City/State But there is another reason. Zip Rethinking Schools survives on small donations and subscriptions. Help keep the notion of Send to Rethinking Schools rethinking our educational system alive. 1001 E Keefe Ave , Milwaukee . WI 53212 Subscribe today! Ltel.. 414-964-9646; fax 414-964-7220 False Choices

False Choices is a terrific package of ammunition in the fight to ward off private vouchers and the right-wing "choice" agenda. "Questions and Answers about School Choice" by the editors of Rethinking Schools is particularly important. Jonathan Kona, author of Savage inequalities and Death at an Early Age

This collection of essays shows school "choice" for what it is a form of malevolent neglect of the needs of children of the working class and the poor. Every citizen who cares about decency and democracy must read False Choices. Herbert Kohl, author of 36 Children and, most recently, From Archetype to Zeitgeist.

False Choices will help parents and families in examining the questionable benefits of the new political game in town parental "choice." Cala Glover, Director, Coalition for Quality Education in Toledo, Ohio and Chair of the National Coalition of Advocates for Students.

Conservative attacks have put the very idea of democratic and public education in serious danger. False Choices is essential reading for all people who wish to challenge the privatizers' agenda. Michael W. Apple John Bascom Professor, University of Wipconsin, Madison

This is a must read book for anyone serious about educational reform. Not only will I make sure my colleagues read it, but I will also air mail a copy to President Bush.

C.J. Prentiss (DCleveland), Member of the Education Committee of the Ohio House of Representatives

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