School Choice

In a recent advertisement, Edithe Fulton, the Ocean County teacher serving as president of the New Jersey Education Association, asserted that the new federal education law known as "No Child Left Behind" is a Trojan horse that will "pave the way" for school choice, more charter schools, and publicly funded private-school scholarships for low-income children. Fulton is correct. The federal law requires school districts to offer successful alternatives to all children in schools that a state has documented as failing.

About 75 people gathered at the Lower Merion High School Auditorium last night to listen to two experts debate a hot topic in education: school choice. Audience members provided questions to State Rep. John A. Lawless (R., Montgomery), who moderated the debate and is a co-sponsor of choice legislation currently in the legislature. Topics covered in the debate included the constitutionality of providing tuition vouchers to all students in the state, the effect that would have on the Lower Merion school system, funding for the learning disabled and the cost of the voucher system to the taxpayer.

Delaware County, home of four of the poorest school districts in the state, was the site of the latest skirmish over school-choice vouchers. The topic, which has yet to make it to the state legislature, was hotly debated Tuesday at Academy Park High School, where a six-member panel of state and local officials discussed the proposed bill. If school vouchers become law, parents living in Chester Upland, Chichester, William Penn and Southeast Delco School Districts could receive money to send their children to schools in another district.

An African American group favoring school choice says it has collected 20,000 signatures from Philadelphia residents and hopes to collect up to 30,000 more by year's end in a show of support for tuition vouchers. The City-Wide African American Grassroots Coalition for School Choice plans to present the petitions to 13 Philadelphia legislators - 12 of them black, one of them Latino - in an effort to show that African Americans do support vouchers, said Walter Palmer, chairman of the Palmer Foundation and a spokesman for the group.

No issue unites the right as school choice does. The religious right, neocons, culturecons, supply-siders and libertarians all argue that vouchers will unleash market forces and break the iron grip of the National Education Association. Many on the right also see school choice as a means to promote moral and religious education. But is publicly funded school choice really conservative? In arguing for vouchers, many of my brethren on the right sound a lot like liberals. Some examples: The Egalitarian Argument.

Ed Feulner is president of the Heritage Foundation We're used to hearing bad news from the education front - poor test scores, falling literacy, slipping standards. But the new academic year brings a welcome change: School-choice programs have expanded significantly in recent months. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal has already dubbed 2011 "The Year of School Choice. " As of this month, 18 states and Washington have policies that support private-school choice. But public-school choice options also continue to grow.

It took one game for the new school-choice program to make an impact on Colonial Conference football. One game. What happens in a month? A season? A couple of years of "recruiting" - oops, I meant to say "attracting" - student athletes to schools outside their home district? The summer buzz in the Colonial Conference was about Sterling, since the Silver Knights had "attracted" several student athletes from other districts through its school-choice option, which is linked to its Junior Naval ROTC program.

There has never been a speech by a white male American leader that rivals President Clinton's open and honest discussion of civil rights. He listed statistics about disparity in the lifestyles of the fortunate and unfortunate, and affirmed: "Affirmative action has been good for America. " When President Clinton says, "Mend it," we should do just that, not discard a success - affirmative action. JOSEPH E. MOORE JR. Chair, Labor/Industry Ambler Branch, NAACP Penllyn Our illustrious legislators vote down the "school choice" bill, yet there is a huge uproar over proposed elimination of "affirmative action.

Is school choice the best way to increase teacher salaries? Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby suggests that it might be. Her hypothesis is based on simple economics: If you have a lot more schools trying to hire the kind of teachers who attract students, "the wage they pay should be greater," and the number of such teachers they hire should increase. She reports finding evidence of this effect from even the most minimal form of school choice, that being metropolitan areas where teachers (and residents)

Members of the Pennsylvania House Committee on Education likely will get an earful tomorrow at another of their hearings held across the state on school choice. The panel is scheduled to convene at 9:30 a.m. at the Falls Township Municipal Building. Representing the superintendents of Bucks County's 13 school districts, Donald D'Amico, superintendent of the Neshaminy School District, said last week he would argue against choice. "Choice would mean that public schools would become the schools of last resort.