Suburbs need not fear school vouchers
Wealthier districts worry about lower test scores and home prices.
By Walt Gardnerfrom the June 28, 2007 edition
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Los Angeles - The tight connection between test scores and home prices that was reported by the recent Trinity College study raises fresh doubts about the ability of an open educational marketplace to improve schooling for all children. Although the study focused only on West Hartford, Conn., its conclusions apply to other blue-ribbon communities across the country.
When parents spend a king's ransom to buy a house, they understandably want to protect what is undoubtedly for most the biggest investment of their lives. Unfettered school choice poses a direct threat by allowing children from urban schools to enroll in suburban schools at the expense of local taxpayers. Too many of these outsiders bring huge deficits in socialization, motivation, and intellectual development through no fault of their own, which lower test scores and, in turn, house prices. Faced with that possibility, suburbanites have fought back, with remarkable success.
It's more than mere coincidence that efforts in the past to desegregate public schools abruptly ended at precisely the same time that suburban schools were imminently threatened.
In 1974, the US Supreme Court in Milliken v. Bradley prohibited busing between urban and suburban school districts, except for unusual cases that met impossibly high standards. The effect of this decision for all practical purposes was to reserve seats in suburban schools exclusively for neighborhood children.
In light of the Milliken decision, efforts to integrate schools largely shifted to intradistrict school choice. This meant that parents were able to choose schools within a district, but they could not cross district lines. States that still had interdistrict plans almost always required schools to enroll out-of-district children only when space was available. If this were not enough of a barrier, funds were not provided for transportation, which for poor parents seeking escape from failing schools has always been a significant disincentive.
Meanwhile, publicly funded voucher programs – in Milwaukee, Cleveland, and elsewhere – have promised more than they've delivered because of the limitations on the way they may be used.
