A long, slow revolution

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on school vouchers, one expert says dramatic change could be decades away.

By Damien Cave

Jun 29, 2002 | A landmark decision Thursday by a bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court validated the use of publicly funded school vouchers that allow students to attend religious and other private schools -- and in doing so, it rekindled a fierce national debate over education. In voting 5-4 to find that vouchers are legal, the high court settled one longstanding controversy, only to spawn others that will play out in the months and years ahead.

Will the injection of free-market ideals like competition ruin or save public education? Who gains and who loses from a voucher-based system? And will such a system undermine the hope that public education can be a fundamental force of equality and democracy?

These are just a few of the questions on the minds of parents and educators all over the country. But in the explosive debate that has followed the court's ruling, one question is more immediate: Will the decision inspire only debate, or will it inspire systemic change?

The Supreme Court decision, after all, did not mandate the use of vouchers. The justices only ruled that the voucher system of Cleveland, Ohio -- which provides up to $2,250 each to families of about 3,700 low-income students -- is constitutional. The onus, the court decided, is now on states. But only Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin have experimented with vouchers; 27 states have rejected them, with California voters twice defeating voucher initiatives. Nationwide, polls show that more people oppose them than favor them. In such a climate, does the Supreme Court decision even matter?

Terry Moe is in a unique position to answer this question. A senior fellow at Hoover Institution and professor of political science at Stanford, Moe is the author of "Schools, Vouchers and the American Public." He is a vocal proponent of vouchers -- "it's my life," he says -- but unlike many other voucher-related tomes, Moe's 2001 book is not so much an attempt to shift public opinion as it is an analysis of it. Most of the book grows out of his 1995 survey of more than 4,000 people.

Moe discovered that at the time, 65 percent of Americans said they hadn't heard of vouchers, though even then, the debate in education circles had been long-running. As a result, most voucher initiatives and legislation, he concluded, faced a tough fight. But a major factor was constitutionality, and now that obstacle has been cleared.

In a telephone interview, Salon questioned Moe about the real-world effects of the Supreme Court ruling.

The Supreme Court decision clears up constitutional questions about voucher programs, but will the legal certainty necessarily lead to a radical change in the landscape of American education? How will the decision actually affect the country's education system?

It will have a big effect over the long haul. In the short run, what we'll see is enhanced legitimacy for vouchers and greater interest in vouchers among some citizens and some policy makers, who had been considering moving in this direction but had some doubt on constitutional grounds. So I think it will give impetus to the voucher movement and will give rise to more proposals. But the power alignments will be the same, as they have been for years. And here, the single most important factor is that the teachers' unions are far and away the most powerful force in the politics of education. They are dedicated to the defeat of vouchers under any and all circumstances. For them, vouchers are a survival issue, and they will be opposed to vouchers no matter what -- even if we were able to show, with 100 percent certainty, that vouchers are good for kids, that they promote better schools. The unions would still be opposed to them. They will use their power to defeat them.

More specifically, the Supreme Court said that states now have the right to establish vouchers. Right now, only Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio have them, but which states do you think will experiment first? Where will the first voucher proposals appear?

Legislators can bring this up anywhere, and there are even some legislators in California who are determined to bring it up. They were waiting for this to happen. But the fact is, the Legislature in California is controlled by the Democrats, and we have a Democratic government -- and they're all pledged to not even consider vouchers. The unions would never allow them to do it.

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