Sacramento, CA --  Over the past year, the case for school choice (i.e. vouchers) has picked up increasing momentum. Studies of choice programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Great Britain show significant improvement in both student performance and parental satisfaction. The New York Times, Washington Post and New Republic have editorialized in favor of school choice, a cause championed by leaders of the African American community such as former Democratic Congressman Floyd Flake.

One can now add the state Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) in California, the Legislature’s non-partisan
research agency, to the list of those wanting to give school choice a chance. Although in previous years the
LAO had simply opposed any school choice proposal, in its recently released analysis of the 1998-99 proposed state budget, the LAO makes an eye-opening recommendation: “We think the idea of vouchers has sufficient merit that the Legislature should sponsor a demonstration program as a way to understand the costs and benefits of the concept. A demonstration program would select a small number of schools where students would be given the opportunity to apply for a voucher.”

Of course, this is exactly what many California school-choice proponents have been arguing since the
defeat of Prop. 174, the 1993 school-choice initiative. Give choice a chance, even if only in a pilot program,
and then let the results dictate what should be done on a statewide basis. Where school choice has been tried it
has succeeded. California should be no exception, so why not have a demonstration program?

For choice opponents such as the teachers’ unions that’s precisely the fear. If school choice succeeds in Compton, Richmond or any other failing public school district in California, then the dam could burst on the unions and their allies. The demand for choice would increase and that could spell the end of the government’s virtual monopoly over K-12 education. Choice opponents, thus, must prevent any opportunity for school choice to prove itself. But that’s exactly what the LAO wants to allow.

The LAO recommends that, “As part of the program, researchers could address a number of important
questions: What choices do voucher-holding students have? Do they fare better than similar students who remain at the [public] school? How does the [public] school respond to this type of competition? Do special education students seek and use vouchers?” Those who fear the answers to these questions are the opponents, not the supporters, of school choice.

While the LAO analysis fails to endorse Governor Wilson’s somewhat larger school-choice proposal, that fact should not obscure the larger and more important point: that for the first time the LAO acknowledges the merit of school choice and recommends appropriation of start-up funding so that a school choice demonstration program can be designed and implemented by 1999-2000. If the Legislature adopts that recommendation, you can start playing taps for the educational status quo in California.

-- Lance T. Izumi