A long, slow revolution

What about the religious aspect? Do you think those who focus on this issue are overreacting? How much will vouchers become forms of religious sponsorship?

First of all, ordinary Americans don't freak out about this at all. This is really a matter that the intelligentsia wrings its hands over; and in particular, it's a matter that liberal intellectuals are especially concerned with. But they're the only ones that really want to draw a strict line.

But it seems clear that vouchers will run afoul not just of liberals. After all, Bush's attempt to encourage faith-based initiatives largely failed to be adopted because there was a realization that whatever money they set aside would have to go everyone, including Muslims and members of New Age religions -- groups that most Christian-Coalition Republicans tend to fear or disagree with. So in this case, it's possible that vouchers would be used to fund a Madrasa that is being investigated by Ashcroft's Department of Justice. What makes you think that conservatives are going to go for this?

These are the kinds of things that can be handled. Basically, what happened [with faith-based initiatives] was that the Democrats weren't going to go along with it, and it got stopped.

What do you mean by "handled"?

Well, you ultimately are going to have rules that determine who gets what. But in a choice system, where the money is going to parents -- and where you can have basic rules about, say, not teaching hatred -- then it's OK. There are going to be Muslim schools and as long as those schools are not teaching hatred, then they should be fine.

How have the programs that are already in place developed on this issue? And has there been anything that's surprised you, in terms of the way the system reacts to vouchers?

These are still small pilot programs. They're just barely voucher programs. For a long time, the Milwaukee program had less than 1,000 kids in a district that has more than 100,000 kids. There were very few schools participating in the program; three-fourths of the kids were in just three private schools. Everyone's looking at Milwaukee as though it's supposed to demonstrate whether vouchers work or not but most of the kids are in three schools. Who cares if those kids achieve more than the kids in the public schools? That's not a test of whether competition works or not. So as long as these programs are as small as they are, you really can't tell that much from them. I wouldn't draw that many conclusions from them. The importance of them is that they're a foot in the door, a way to get people to see that we can do this. These programs are up and running, they work fine and there's no real downside risk. Let's just do it.

But isn't it also too soon to know whether there's a downside risk? Critics have repeatedly argued that vouchers will hurt the neediest schools and students. Could this turn out to be a more accurate prediction?

Look, in many of these urban systems, the schools are failing. In Cleveland, well over half the kids never graduate from high school. A lot of them can't read or do basic math. The Cleveland school system is ruining their futures. If we don't do something radical and big now, those kids are going to be lost.

And yet, you don't think that this argument will be adopted on a wide scale ...

This is what I think is going to happen. There will be more proposals in legislatures around the country because of [this Supreme Court decision]. There will be more support for vouchers as a result of this. It's not going to be a groundswell of ordinary people; they're not that familiar with it, so it will be at the legislative level. The unions will fight it. The unions will win most of these, almost all of these. But they will lose some fights and the ones that they lose will then accumulate over time. And they will snowball. It's going to take a long time but in the meantime, the civil rights groups are going to move. Because these are their constituents: poor, minority parents in cities. These parents are very supportive of vouchers. They're in failing schools and they need help. The civil rights groups like the NAACP are not representing them on this. They're out of sync with their own people. And there are young blacks who are rising up now, and who are providing leadership for these people. If the NAACP doesn't move, it's going to be displaced. Furthermore, over time, the older leaders of the NAACP are going to move out and they're going to be replaced by these younger people. And these people are very open to vouchers. They see vouchers as a way of empowering poor people. So within 10 years, the civil rights groups will move on this. And when they do, it's over. The unions will then be on the fringe; the civil rights groups will then play a major role in designing voucher programs. And the world will look very different.

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