School Choice Restores
Faith in Education

By REGGIE WHITE and SARA WHITE
June 11, 1998

Milwaukee has the nation's most extensive school-choice program, which includes vouchers to help poor parents send their children to private schools. Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the vouchers could be used at parochial schools, a decision embraced by the primarily black and Hispanic parents who benefit from and fought for the voucher program.

The evidence is clear that choice improves schools. Take for example one poor school district--located in the poor New York City neighborhood of East Harlem--that has had public-school choice since the 1980s. Student performance on reading tests, which once ranked among the worst in the city, has risen to the average. In Milwaukee, after several years in the program, third- and fourth-grade low-income kids participating in the school-choice program have reading scores three to five percentile points higher than low-income students in the public schools. Math scores are five to 12 percentile points higher for choice students.

But numbers can't describe the broad revival--educational and spiritual--that choice has helped foster. Private individuals have formed a charity called Partners Advancing Values in Education, which provides matching grants to parents who send their children to parochial schools. PAVE has allowed Joy Allen's three children to attend the Believers in Christ Academy. "My children learn more. I think it's a better education," says Ms. Allen, a former public-school bus driver. At the public school her children attended previously, it seemed impossible to change the entrenched system. Ms. Allen says her choice school has "a better system, because it allows the parents and teachers to share values together" through prayer and faith. Now even those not in the PAVE program can enjoy such benefits through publicly-funded vouchers,

Vivian Watts pulled her two boys out of public school four years ago. They now attend Resurrection Catholic Academy. Because of school choice, Ms. Watts can deal with teachers who share her religious faith and help impart it to her children. "I'm more involved now in their education and their well-being," she says.

Although public-school teachers work hard, they have little room to excel because of the mound of government and union regulations. Managing these rules requires an army of administrators and bureaucrats, which siphons precious resources away from the classrooms. An Alexis de Tocqueville Institution study has shown that the U.S., spends nearly 150% of the amount such countries as Germany and Japan do on "nonteaching personnel"--while public-school teachers' salaries, as a share of per pupil education spending, have fallen by more than 45% since 1960.

The greater availability of private school alternatives in Milwaukee has helped public schools, which must improve to keep their students from going elsewhere. The new motto of Milwaukee's public-school system: "We want to be Milwaukee's schools of choice."

Choice schools enjoy a level of parental involvement unheard of at other institutions. And much of it would be impossible in a nonchoice environment. While we were visiting Believers in Christ, a man passed by with a determined stride. "That's one of our parents--his boy is the one who did the kickoff for you in the third grade," said teacher Cheryl Brown. "He comes during his break at work to clean the toilets every day."

Choice has also given teachers more freedom to discipline children, a welcome development for parents. "I live in an apartment building with a lot of public-school kids," Ms. Allen says. "There's a difference in the children. Non-school choice kids . . . just go crazy. School choice kids are more calm."

An administrator who works on admissions for Believers in Christ told us he has seen a number of applications from parents who say they moved into the city simply to become eligible for the PAVE program. Business leaders say that school choice and the PAVE scholarships play a part in their recruitment efforts and decisions about locating plants. The existence of private-school vouchers and PAVE has resulted in many new schools opening in Milwaukee--and many more will move from the drawing board in the wake of yesterday's ruling.

Milwaukee's choice system has revived values and families in a way that can only come from religion--especially for those of us who cannot separate God from life, or faith from learning. At one elementary school, we met a child whose divorced parents couldn't even sit together peacefully one year ago. Now they are able to get along for the sake of their child. This reconciliation was made possible by a pastor who works at the school, sees the child every day and ministers to the family.

Mr. White, a defensive end for the Green Bay Packers, is the National Football League's all-time sack leader. Mrs. White, his wife, is a co-founder of Urban Hope, which ministers to inner-city residents. Both are senior fellows with the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.