Vouchers: Last hope for reform
November 2, 2000
by Henry Payne and Diane Katz
Copyright The Detroit News

Detroit - Jacqueline Robinson and her husband will vote in favor of the school voucher proposal for six reasons: Christian, Julian, Jay, Seth, Autumn and Joshua. This African-American couple from Detroit now deplete their modest wages paying $16,000 in parochial school tuition each year.

"Sometimes we can't afford what we really need," she says, "but I won't sacrifice my children to the god of public schools."

Kathy Alvarado, a Mexican-American, sent her first born from her Detroit home to live with relatives 25 miles away in Wyandotte rather than condemn her to the chaos pervading the city's public schools, a district losing 80 percent of its students before graduation. "I was heartbroken," says Alvarado, "... but she liked the school a lot."

Five other families on Alvarado's block of bungalows in northwest Detroit also have enrolled their kids elsewhere. Tens of thousands of others during the past two decades have abandoned the city for suburban school districts, leaving Detroit largely devoid of the middle class that makes a community viable.

For many of those left behind, the voucher referendum represents the last hope for meaningful reform after 20 years of broken promises. And for Detroit, the proposal may represent the last, best chance to halt its exodus of people.

"I have friends who have moved to Allen Park," Alvarado says. "If Prop 1 doesn't pass, some of my neighbors will move. We'll probably move to Dearborn or Allen Park."

The proposal would repeal a 1970 state constitutional prohibition against using public money in nonpublic schools, the most restrictive in the nation. It would also provide a tuition voucher of about $3,300 per child to families in so-called failing school districts -- those in which two-thirds of students don't graduate.

Unlike voucher efforts elsewhere, Proposal 1 targets the most distressed school districts, but allows others a choice to opt in by a vote of the local school board or district residents. In this way, backers hoped to elicit support from suburban districts, where parents are generally satisfied with their schools.

The strategy showed promise initially, as polls reflected majority support among Detroit and statewide voters. In recent weeks, however, the momentum has favored opponents.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has campaigned for Prop 1, as has the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the Archdiocese of Detroit. But the opposition of Gov. John Engler has hurt. Theoretically a supporter of school choice, Engler withheld his support for fear that the Democratic base would turn out in droves to defeat the proposal, thus jeopardizing George W. Bush and other GOP candidates.

Engler's political calculation puzzles the Rev. Eddie Edwards, whose Joy of Jesus ministry serves some of Detroit's neediest families. "Republicans have been looking for something that would open the door to the black community," he says. "I think this is what they've been waiting for. This is the issue."

What the polls can't adequately measure is the depth of support for school choice among the people who need it most -- families on the lowest rung of the pay scale for whom a solid education offers the only route to a more prosperous future.

"We are losing potential engineers, architects and computer experts everyday," says the Rev. Edwards. The school he established eight years ago on the principle that high expectations can keep kids out of trouble was forced to close because of a lack of money. Edwards vows to try again if Prop 1 passes, illustrating the new schools that would emerge in a voucher-driven market.

"Children are not learning," he says, "and the crisis is so immense now that people are willing to try a change."

Voucher foes are not above characterizing the proposal as a scheme by white Republicans to dilute black power over the public school system. Indeed, "All Kids First," the anti-voucher group, peppers its literature with the assertion that private schools "can discriminate by race" -- a patently untrue claim designed to stir up minority opposition.

But families like the Robinsons won't take the race-bait. "Just like with slavery, there were whites who came forward with the abolition message," Robinson says. "We've got to get past this race issue. ... Every child, no matter their economic status or racial heritage, is entitled to a decent education."

Voucher opponents argue that parents must be patient. Give Detroit's new school reform board time to turn around the system, they say. But Robinson isn't persuaded.

"If parents are in a place where schools aren't improving," she says, "then I shouldn't be asked to wait."

Ironically, the districts where parents would most benefit from vouchers are at the mercy of voters most satisfied with the status quo. For example, Birmingham's PTA board joined its comrades statewide and nationally to oppose Proposal 1.

Though their wealth is a product of Michigan's most competitive industry -- automobiles -- some parents' suspicion of an education market bears a remarkable similarity to the auto industry's protectionist impulses.

"Schools will have less money to educate the kids left behind," says Shelley Weisberg, a Birmingham school board member. "Vouchers will not help kids get into private schools. It will only subsidize kids already in private schools."

She also notes that parents can choose between public schools within the same district. But Birmingham parent Tom Murphree, who wants a voucher to send his child elsewhere because he dislikes the district's textbooks and its teaching of Chicago math, questioned Weisberg on that point, observing that all schools in a district must hew to the same curriculum.

"If you don't like Chicago math," Weisberg retorts, "you're going to have to accept that because that's what the experts say should be taught in that field."

Such arrogance riles parents like Murphree, the Robinsons and the Alvarados. They see Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and Detroit school board chief Freman Hendrix, both voucher opponents, sending their own children to private schools. Why, they ask, can't the less-privileged benefit from the same freedom?