In a national poll released this week, the public appears to be evenly split over the idea of government vouchers to pay for students' education. The vouchers would pay part or all of a student's tuition at a public, private or parochial school. Many are arguing that a voucher system will help improve both public and private schools. Margaret Warner explores the issue with four experts.
MARGARET WARNER: It's back to school time for millions of American 
children. And for many that means returning to public school systems that are failing to produce well-educated students. One possible fix, long favored by conservatives, is to give low income parents tuition vouchers so they can send their children to private schools. Now the idea seems to be gaining broader support. A national Gallup poll released this week showed the public now evenly split, 49 to 48 percent, on 
providing vouchers to cover tuition at any public, private, or church-related school. In past years, a majority opposed the idea. Another poll this summer showed that support for vouchers among black Americans has jumped, from virtually even last year to 57-38 in favor this year.
About 20 states are considering setting up some kind of school choice program. But only Wisconsin, Ohio, and Vermont have actually instituted any kind of publicly-funded vouchers. The oldest and largest plan is Milwaukee's. Two years ago, the Wisconsin legislature tried to expand that program to include religious schools. But last Friday a state appeals court ruled that move was 
unconstitutional. To debate the merits and prospects of school choice, we have two advocates: Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, a Republican; and Democratic Congressman Floyd Flake of New York, a co-sponsor of legislation to set up a pilot voucher program in the District of Columbia; and two opponents: Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union; and Marshall Smith Acting Deputy Secretary of Education in the Clinton administration.
A surprise supporter of vouchers.
MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Flake, you surprised a lot of people by coming out in support of vouchers. Why? Why do you support them?
REP. FLOYD FLAKE, (D) New York: I support vouchers I--in addition to being in Congress--I happen to pastor a church and a community that is severely impacted by the fact that many of the young people in that community are not getting the kind of education that makes them competitive in the global context, or brings them to a point where even if they get a degree, they're dysfunctional. And so it is my firm belief that as long as public education does not do the job, there must be some competition and there must be some opportunity for alternatives for those parents whose children are locked into a system from which they cannot escape, or which they are guaranteed that they are going to be able to get the kind of education they need in order to survive in this society.
MARGARET WARNER: Now, you've broken ranks with not only a lot of the African-American leadership in this country--the NAACP still opposes vouchers, so does the Congressional Black Caucus--but also with your 
own Democratic Party, your own President. How does that make you feel? Why do you think that is?
REP. FLOYD FLAKE: Well, I think that if you look at the history of America, there's always had to be someone to kind of step out and say it's time for a change. Were that not the case. Brown Vs. Board of Education would not have happened in ‘54. Dr. Martin Luther King and others would not have been able to bring about necessary change. I think as we analyze what has happened in education over the last twenty-five or thirty years, we realize that the model that we have is not working as effectively as it ought be, and there are a lot of our young people who are just being left behind with nowhere to go, but to jail, because they've already been put in a position where they can't compete in this society.
MARGARET WARNER: Bob Chase, what do you and your fellow teachers say or your teachers union members say to Congressman Flake when he says that the system is just totally failing, at least his community and many--
BOB CHASE, National Education Association: First of all, I don't think it's accurate to say that the system is totally failing. Just recently, we had more test results that have been announced--either SAT tests, or ACT tests, the NAPE test, the TIMS test earlier this year--where, in fact, we are seeing improvements coming now in public education. I think this is the result of the work that's been done over the last few years in reforming and restructuring and putting into place new things that are necessary to make sure that we meet the needs of our students. Vouchers are not a fix as far as public education or the education of our children are concerned. What it really is, is abandoning public education and abandoning many students who will not be allowed to go on to schools that vouchers will be used to--for students to go in to. I think it's bad public policy. The area of accountability will be very, very minimal as it relates to vouchers. That's one of the things that those who are--many of those who pushing vouchers want little or no accountability. And I think that it is not, in effect, going to be a hazardous thing in the long run, improving education for all of the students in our country.
Urban school issues.
MARGARET WARNER: Congressman, you want to respond to that?
REP. FLOYD FLAKE: Sure. I think the problem is that when you look at what is happening in reality, though public education is probably improving, it is not improving significantly enough or fast enough in these urban communities where these young people know that they do not have an opportunity to be able to compete with young people from the suburbs and from other places, in particular. I think that what has happened is that--just like the automobile industry--when it had a monopoly, it produced a product that did not hold up well. I think what is happening--and I'm not against public education--I think it ought to survive--I just think it ought to do a better job. And if it cannot, then there ought to be an alternative that takes a portion of that market share. He is right, that vouchers won't end the whole problem or solve the whole issue, but at least it will let them know that there are alternative institutions and African-American parents on the whole, over 62 percent, are saying, we need an alternative; we're tired of our children going into this system and our tax dollars not educating our children.
MARGARET WARNER: Isn't he right, Deputy Secretary Smith, that a majority of African-American parents now say they want it, and whatever improvement is happening in the schools isn't coming fast enough, at least for inner-city students?
MARSHALL SMITH, Acting Deputy Secretary of Education: There's no question. There's a deep, deep problem in the inner-city schools, or in many inner-city schools, not all. And I think that's partly what Bob Chase was just saying; that there are many, many, many, many, many places where you have very effective urban schools. You have effective urban schools in District 2 in New York, District 4, Philadelphia, San Francisco's had test scores moving up five years in a row. So there's no question but that one can move urban centers and what it takes is not a new panacea and takes is not saying, let's have private school choice without accountability, as Bob said. What it really takes is willpower. It takes strong school boards. It takes good principals. It takes hard work for the public schools. The same poll that you've just been citing said right at the very beginning that a large majority of the American public do not want to forsake the public school system; they want to change the public school system. They want to reform it.
MARGARET WARNER: But do you feel that having even a small voucher program means forsaking the public schools?
MARSHALL SMITH: Oh, I think it distracts attention. It politicizes. It leads to this kind of a discussion, rather than a discussion about how to put computers in classrooms, about how to improve teaching in learning. It also moves our discussion away from the role the public schools have played for a century in our country. It's public schools where desegregation began to move in this country in the South and benefited millions and millions of white and black children. It's public education which has brought this country to the point where it is the longest lasting democracy in an incredibly diverse country. But we have the strongest economy. It goes to public schoolchildren. Only 11 percent of our children go to private schools. It's a figure that very few people know.
The Wisconsin experience.
MARGARET WARNER: We are here in a way to discuss that, so let me ask Gov. Thompson, who has the most experience with this. What is really the track record now? In the Milwaukee schools we've had this program for seven years. Is it--have the kids who've gotten--received vouchers done better--have they benefited?
GOV. TOMMY THOMPSON, (R) Wisconsin: Absolutely, without any doubt whatsoever. And the truth of the matter is that I sort of chuckle every time that I debate this issue. The question is, is always is that you want to abandon public schools. In Wisconsin, we've put an additional $1.2 billion into our public schools but at the same time we want to allow those poor African-American children, minority children in the city of Milwaukee to have another choice. Fifty percent of the students are not graduating from high school in the public school setting. But in the private school setting over 80 percent are. That is an indication. We're seeing more parental involvement. That is a positive thing. When you get parents involved, you're going to have an increased improvement of education for your children. Mesmer Private School in Milwaukee has a 98 percent graduation rate, 98 percent. And the vast majority of those minority students are going on to college. That's what we want to accomplish. Choice is not the panacea, but it is one of those things that we have to try. It does increase accountability because it's competition. And it allows the public schools to get better, as well as the private schools. That's why we're in this. We're trying to make all of our schools better. We're not trying to abandon one system in deference to the other. We're trying to make all schools better for children, especially minority children.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. How do you answer those figures, those graduation rates and so on?
BOB CHASE: First of all, in all due respect to Gov. Thompson, I want to indicate that just each year that the voucher program has been in place in Milwaukee, approximately 25 percent have left the program each year. That's not an enormously high percentage by any stretch of the imagination.
GOV. TOMMY THOMPSON: But--
BOB CHASE: Excuse me, Governor. I didn't interrupt you.
MARGARET WARNER: Let him answer, and then I'll get back to you.
BOB CHASE: In addition to that, there have been in a relatively few number of schools who have taken part in the voucher program, there have been several of those schools that have closed down in mid-year. There have been problems with them. And as far as saying that all students are doing better, we can have the normal discussion of doing studies if we want, but there is no empirical that clearly shows, without any doubt, that students who are going to the voucher schools in Milwaukee are doing better. We can show one study that says no; one study that says yes; and I don't think anybody wants to get involved in doing studies. But there's no definite empirical data that can show that.
MARGARET WARNER: Governor, can you respond without getting into dueling studies?
GOV. TOMMY THOMPSON: Well, absolutely. I can. Mesmer High School is a private school. It's a choice school. 98 percent of the students in Mesmer last year graduated from high school. 90 percent--89 to 91 percent are going on to college this fall. That, to me, is a statistic that nobody can deny.
MARGARET WARNER: All right.
GOV. TOMMY THOMPSON: And that's true all over.
MARGARET WARNER: But respond to the question that the reason those statistics are so good is because essentially all the failures--the kids who didn't make it, the schools that didn't make it--kind of 
dropped out.
GOV. TOMMY THOMPSON: Well, that is absolutely not true. We're finding that a lot of poor children and children that are not doing good in public schools are the ones that are dropping out and going into the private schools because they're not getting the proper education. And we're finding that they have found a niche. And when they found that niche in the private school setting, they've done better. And I think it's much--you know--I think it's wonderful that we can show that in our private school setting over 80 percent on average in all the private schools are graduating from high school when in the public school setting only 50 percent are. That's a statistic that nobody can argue with.
MARGARET WARNER: Sec. Smith wants to get in here.
MARSHALL SMITH: Well, there's--we agree on the problem. We agree that there's a major problem in Milwaukee and many other places. We disagree on the strategy. There are public school strategies, as you know, Governor--charter schools, other kinds of public school strategies--
GOV. TOMMY THOMPSON: Absolutely.
MARSHALL SMITH: --that work just as well as private school strategies.
MARGARET WARNER: Governor, let him finish, and then I want to go to the Congressman actually, but go ahead.
MARSHALL SMITH: We don't have to get into a situation where we abandon public schools, where we set up contentious arguments of this sort. We can set up strategies in the inner cities, where we have public school choice through charter schools, or we have choice systems, Cambridge, Montclair, a variety of other choice systems, where everybody has choice. We can set it up in such a way that it's fair, where parents have information about it, where there is transportation and so on, and where everybody--everybody--
MARGARET WARNER: Are any of these happening now?
MARSHALL SMITH: Yes. All over the country there are places like this.
"What about the public school system left behind?"
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Congressman, let me ask you to answer the question that both these opponents--and weigh in on anything else you want--but their point is, what about the kids left behind, what about the public school system left behind, what impact does vouchers have on them?
REP. FLOYD FLAKE: Well, I think that what those who are on the opposite side of this debate don't understand is that those children are already left behind. What you would bring out of that system in terms of those who would receive vouchers would not be a significant number, but it would be a number of those who would otherwise not have an opportunity for a better education. Those schools--at the moment that those communities unfortunately integrated, white flight took the best of the young people out. And right now, in my community, any child who is at the top of their class can get out of their community, go to some of the best schools on the outside of the community, so the worst kids are still left in the community.
The bottom line is desegregation as we anticipated it would work has not worked because the buses only went one way, and so many of the minority students have already been left behind. My argument is we need a means by which we give some hope to those persons who are left behind, give them a chance and an opportunity to be as competitive as anyone else. And what I find interesting, most of the people when I get into these debates, they're sending their kids to private schools, and they're telling everybody else, no, your kids have to stay in those systems. My kids even went to private schools. But the reality is we've got to deal with the fact that here are some people who can't afford it. I have a school. If my parents had a $1300 voucher, which my community would not be eligible for, but if they had that, it's just a bridge. It is not all the tuition, but it does say--and I see parents come, grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends, who want to make sure that that child gets a good education, and they invest in that childhood. When they invest in their child, they come to PTA meetings, they help with the homework, they do everything they can to make sure that that child can survive.
MARGARET WARNER: And why wouldn't--
REP. FLOYD FLAKE: I met with 30 educators who work in the public system. They say it needs to be changed because it's too democratic, and they cannot do the things that they've been trained to do.
MARGARET WARNER: You mean so--I wanted to ask you--why are the parents not involved in the public school systems?
REP. FLOYD FLAKE: They're not involved in public school because there's not an incentive. Most private schools require young people to have a certain amount of homework every night that is prepared, has to be done by the next day. It's almost impossible for a parent not to participate in that child's education, No. 1. No. 2, in too many public schools the standards have been lowered. And rather than challenging the young people to reach the standard, they have allowed the young people to make a determination that they can't reach the standard, so that in local preventives it's no longer a part of the process sadly, and, therefore, the teachers do not see them as an extension of themselves, of their families, and do not challenge them to raise themselves to standards that will allow them to be competitive.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. In the minute we have left let me let Bob Chase respond on behalf of the schools and the teachers on that point.
BOB CHASE: Two points I'd like to make. First of all, unlike maybe some of Rep. Flake's other opponents on this issue, my daughters did attend public school, both of them. As a matter of fact, my second daughter attended public school here in Washington, D.C., and received a very good education. And I'm very pleased with that. Let me also indicate that we too--the NEA--the AFT--teachers around this country--
MARGARET WARNER: The other teachers--
BOB CHASE: That's right--are fighting very hard for high standards, for improvements in education, and we are making good progress and will continue to make good progress. We are firmly convinced that vouchers are not the answer. As a matter of fact, the public has said over and over again on four different times when they've had the real polls--and that's the opportunity to go to the polls and vote--and four states across this country since 1992--on the basis of two to one--they have said, no.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. And, gentlemen, I'm sorry, but we have to leave it there. Thank you all very much.
A RealAudio version of of this segment is available.
