SACRAMENTO, CA - John Walton, who passed away at age 58 in a plane crash last month, was an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune. He was also a champion of children in a noble cause that should motivate legislators to launch much-needed reforms.

As a man of wealth, John Walton enjoyed many choices. He wanted others to have that same freedom to choose, especially when it comes to education. Since America's public education monopoly often denies such choice, Walton supported voucher programs that would channel government funding to the student, rather than a system or particular institution. Students could then use the voucher to pay tuition to attend private schools.
This is the model used in higher education and programs such as the G.I. Bill.

The dollar follows the scholar, not the education establishment. Of course, those in the establishment oppose
parental choice in K-12 education because they would have to compete and improve, or face the loss of students. With captive clients, the system can maintain mediocrity. Its funding is not tied to performance.

With their vast clout, provided by taxpayers, educrats and teacher unions have been able to defeat most voucher campaigns. John Walton, a decorated Vietnam veteran who served as a medic with the Green Berets, did not let a reactionary establishment stop him.

In 1998, he co-founded the Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF) to provide tuition assistance for low-income families. In its first year, nearly 1.25 million applications flooded in from more than 20,000 communities. Those numbers confirm that low-income families nationwide remain dissatisfied with government schools, and that they are willing to make sacrifices to improve their children's future.

The scholarships pay, on average, 50 percent of a child's tuition. For many parents, that is enough. They are overjoyed that someone is striving to help them and willingly make up the other 50 percent. More than 67,000 children have benefited from the Children's Scholarship Fund and currently more than 23,000 children are using CSF scholarships.

Parents in the program overwhelmingly choose non-government schools because they perceive that such schools are more attentive to the needs of their children. In the government system, education bureaucrats dictate which schools children attend. Many children remain trapped in dangerous inner-city schools that do little more than warehouse students.

The CSF will carry on but John Walton will be greatly missed. Others should step forward to fill the ranks. And for their part, legislators should apply the lesson John Walton learned.

Demand for parental choice in education remains huge, particularly with low-income families. Dissatisfaction with
the educational status quo also runs high. Choice is the wave of the future. Limited voucher programs, really a form of scholarships or grants, now operate in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. Others will surely follow.

Vouchers are similar to food stamps, which do not oblige low-income recipients to shop in government stores. Likewise, housing vouchers do not oblige needy families to live in government buildings. Politicians should extend the principal to education and make the system function as a scholarship fund for children.

There is no longer any legal reason to oppose choice, only political reasons, and these are not sufficient. The future of children is more important, as John Walton recognized. As a matter of basic civil rights, legislators in California, and all states, should establish full parental choice in K-12 education for all families.

K. Lloyd Billingsley is editorial director at the PacificResearch Institute. He can be reached via email at
klbillingsley@pacificresearch.org.