Leaving Children Behind

I've long been a proponent of school vouchers, and the five-year anniversary of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) seems as good a time as any to explain why.

Notice I said I'm a proponent of vouchers, not necessarily of the NCLBA. As it was originally written, the Act did much to push authority and decision making down to state and local levels where it belongs. After enduring the massage parlor that is Congress, it came out looking much different and added layers of federal bureaucracy instead of eliminating them, leaving many of the provisions giving parents education choices on the floor. What remained in the way of school choice were very minor allowances that have failed. As just one example, the White House Office of Management and Budget revealed that the NCLB Act resulted in an additional 6.7 million hours of additional paperwork and reporting requirements for state and local educators. As Ronald Reagan was so fond of saying, "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem."

Let's look at Government's report card and see if he was right:

-Total education spending per child has doubled since 1975 and Federal spending per child has doubled since 1980.

-National test scores have remained stagnant, especially for those receiving federal aid.

-Federal education spending has increased so dramatically that states now hold a combined $6-billion in unspent funds. (The location and disbursement of these funds is a topic for another day)

-The pupil/teacher ratio has decreased from 22/1 in 1970 to 16/1 in 1999.

-For every dollar spent on education, 40 cents is taken for bureaucracy and never reaches the classroom (my bet is much of those funds are routed to union groups via educators paychecks which isn't fair to the teachers).

I'd say that amounts to a D- at best.

There are signs of hope, however. Several states have enacted their own version of school choice programs, none quite as exciting as the one Utah's governor recently signed into law.

Under the law, called the Parent Choice in Education Act, families choosing to send their children to private schools of any type will receive scholarships based on family income and the number of children in the home. The amounts range from $500 to $3,000. All students currently attending public school now have the option of changing schools and using taxpayer funds to help defray the costs. Students already attending private schools are not eligible for assistance unless they meet the federal free or reduced lunch criteria. Over time this will change. All students entering kindergarten in 2007 or later, regardless of where they attend school, will be eligible for the scholarships.

Many of the misleading arguments against school choice raise the specter of funding reduction for public schools resulting in critical degradation of resources. Well guess what? Utah's plan compensates for that, making it a non-issue. Each time a student transfers to a private school, the state will send the public district funds, amounting to more than the average voucher amount paid throughout the state. Initially, this will result in a slight cost increase for taxpayers, but will save significant amounts in the mid and long-term.

Once the new school year rolls around, all children entering Kindergarten this fall and beyond will be able to choose public or private schools, with no additional funds sent to public schools if the child never attends one. This means there will be thousands of students who never darken the door of a public school, and taxpayers will not be stuck with the bill to support those schools. They'll know their money is being used to support an education product they choose to consume.

This all leads to a basic market principle that's been pushed to the side of the education debate for far too long: Competition. Once Utah's plan has time to take hold, those schools providing an inferior product will give way to others providing a product of choice. Studies conducted on other school choice programs have all shown several benefits. Parent's satisfaction with the schools they choose is dramatically higher, academic achievement is higher and participating schools respond to the competition by improving performance and becoming more efficient.

This comes as no surprise to those who make their living fighting for consumer dollars; the question is why teacher unions and legislators have refused to recognize this dynamic force for change? Back to Reagan for the answer:

"This is the issue... Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

Amen Ronnie, amen.