School choice raises results

Children whose parents take an active interest in their education are far more likely to succeed in school than children whose parents don't. School choice promotes parental involvement. Do the math: Increasing school choice overall inevitably increases overall academic achievement.

Yet the education establishment persists in opposing government funding of private-school tuitions for low-income children stuck in failing public schools. That's despite the positive record of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, reported on this page by Washington Post columnist Fred Hiatt.

Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley, aims to expand school choice, too, with a common-sense amendment to the S.C. Open Enrollment bill. His proposal, co-sponsored by Sen. David Thomas, R-Greenville, would provide private-school "scholarships" (Sen. Grooms knows "voucher" is a politically loaded term) of from $3,800 to $3,900 a year. That program, however, would only apply to students enrolled in failing public schools who meet these two criteria: a) their family incomes are no more than twice the poverty rate, b) their transfer requests to better public schools have been rejected.

Sen. Grooms told us Monday that he hopes the Senate will debate his amendment this week, perhaps as early as today. He predicts that if it passes, little if any state money would go to private-school tuitions because districts would find ways to grant those transfers to better public schools. He also points to the longtime state tuition grants to S.C. students attending private colleges as conclusive evidence that younger students could constitutionally receive such educational assistance.

More evidence of the general legality of vouchers — or, if you prefer, "scholarships": The Georgia Legislature last week passed a bill allowing families of children with disabilities, including special-education students, to use state tax money for private-school tuition. That legislation was based on a similar program in Florida that already has withstood a court challenge.

Tim Callahan, spokesman for the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, predictably warned: "The real danger is the relative lack of safeguards against people opening up schools simply to draw down that money, people who may not have the best interest of children at heart, or the training."

That criticism echoes the familiar educrat refrain that voucher programs lack "accountability" — as if parents would be either uncaring or incapable of making the right school choices. An even weaker case against vouchers, cited in Mr. Hiatt's column, was made in 2003 by People for the America Way president Ralph Neas, who charged that "privatization of public education ... heavily favors the wealthiest families to the detriment of the majority of public school students."

But "the wealthiest families" already enjoy the full range of school choice thanks to their ability to pay expensive tuitions. The D.C. scholarship program clearly does not benefit the wealthy. It does benefit the approximately 1,800 children whose educational opportunities have been enhanced by it.

The D.C. program is not a panacea for all students, or for all that ails that city's education system, long among the most highly funded yet lowest-performing districts in the nation.

Sen. Grooms' plan is no panacea, either. But it is a way to expand school choice, which in turn would expand parental involvement — and elevate classroom results. The General Assembly should give it full and fair consideration.