LAST TUESDAY, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the nation's first federally funded voucher program by a margin of a single vote. Should it pass in the Senate, the plan will offer D.C. students $10 million worth of private school tuition grants next year. Vouchers are yet another band-aid solution that will not only offer limited improvement in the short-run but hinder the possibility of public education from ever becoming adequate. Further, while voucher proponents from the District insist the bill is a local issue, the voucher plan will set a dangerous precedent for the entire nation.
There is no question on whether the quality of education in the District needs to be improved -- it does. Advocates of vouchers want to offer low-income families the possibility of school choice. Households earning up to 186 percent of the poverty limit ($34,000 for a family of four) have the opportunity to apply to receive $7,500 to be spent on a private school education in the metropolitan area. The money the bill allocates should be enough to help 1,300 students.
That sounds well and good, but a closer look at the figures tells a different story. Considering the number of failing schools in the District -- dozens -- and the number of students per school -- thousands -- this action is simply not enough. Only a small minority of students will be helped, and they will not be selected on the basis of any comparable worth.
This brings us to the second problematic figure: the limited nature of the maximum endowment. Tuition at the best secular private schools in the District can be more than twice the allotted $7,500, an amount intended to cover transportation and additional fees as well. First, this limits schools available under voucher funding to the cheaper private schools, which are mainly Catholic schools. Opponents of vouchers have long relied on the defense of separation of church and state. Secondly, the financial constraints necessarily circumscribe the eligibility pool, excluding the very poor. Even at the cheapest private schools, families will have to provide additional funds to meet tuition, which many households do not have. Those that perhaps need the immediate attention most will be left behind.
Of the students who are financially capable of utilizing vouchers, there is still the issue of who will get them. Logistically, if the number of applicants exceeds the funds, priority will go to those in the worst schools and then applicants from a lottery will determine the rest. But the application itself is really a matter of self-selection, which is neither a reliable nor beneficial system. A huge information bias exists when it comes to education.
Institutional deficiencies are not the only barrier to education -- parental apathy figures in significantly. For example, schools in low-income neighborhoods have low PTA involvement. Students fail at reading because they cannot get help at school or at home. Among low income families, only the exceptional parents will take the initiative to pursue voucher funds. And this is precisely the group that vouchers should not be targeting. Schools don't hold back achievers; schools hold back those who depend on them exclusively. The District should be most worried about the kids who will become illiterate adults -- the latter groups makes up a third of the area's population.
Institutional change is the only solution to the education problem in D.C. and the rest of the country. While voucher proponents purport to help this process by adding competition to the equation, they are mistaken. The market created by vouchers is not clean enough. The complete privatization of education could offer a chance at the necessary change, but as the limited scale of vouchers shows, this goal will be feasible at no time soon. Public schools should not merely respond to the challenge of competition, but to the knowledge that vouchers won't save their students -- that only they can save them.
Mere temporary change has no place in the battle for better education. Let's not waste time or money unless it means attacking the institution itself. Thousands of students left in failing school is thousands too many left behind.
(Kimberly Liu's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kliu@cavalierdaily.com.)
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