School's out, but fight over school choice is in

A new federal law and a landmark Supreme Court decision are reenergizing the fight over school choice.

For the first time, Washington is requiring school districts this fall to provide other options for students in schools labeled "in need of improvement."

And seven weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled that a voucher program in Cleveland was constitutional, state lawmakers from California to Maine are gearing up to introduce school-choice legislation this fall.

The fresh momentum for such programs must overcome new legal challenges, however. Last week a circuit court judge in Tallahassee ruled that a Florida voucher program violated the state constitution. Although that ruling will be appealed, similar hurdles are likely to face voucher efforts in dozens of states.

"It's a sign that school choice is stumbling forward, and Florida was a stumble," says Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and a school-choice advocate. "Where the politicians agree to choice, opponents will take to the courts."

The battle, in short, is more contentious than ever, and activists on both sides agree that it is expanding to Congress, state legislatures, and state courts. The outcome could dramatically change what a public education means in the United States.

Until recently, most of the $321 billion that the federal government has spent on education since 1965 has been directed to helping children do better in the school closest to home.

School choice was an option mainly for families who afford to could pay for private-school tuition.

But in the past 10 years, choice programs – both privately and publicly funded – have begun to change the face of public education in the United States, especially for lower-income students. These include magnet schools, open enrollment, public charter schools, as well as private scholarship programs, public vouchers, tax credits and deductions to make choices more affordable.

While most comment on the newly revised Elementary and Secondary Education Act has focused on its new requirements for testing and accountability, in fact its strongest early impact will be in the area of school choice.

"The new ESEA legislation puts a great deal of faith in the school choice movement, increasing federal support for charter schools, and other voluntary public school choice programs," write Carl Krueger and Todd Ziebarth in a study for the Education Commission of the States, which is based in Denver.

In the final hours of drafting this bill and the regulations to enforce it, the Bush administration pushed forward a feature that requires school districts to provide students in failing schools with the option of attending higher-performing schools.

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