TESTIMONY OF REVEREND TIMOTHY MCDONALD
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
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Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify today before this Subcommittee on the Constitution’s oversight hearing on the Supreme Court’s voucher decision and Congress’ authority to enact voucher programs. My name is Reverend Timothy McDonald and I am a member of the Board at People For the American Way -- a citizens’ organization dedicated to protecting constitutional and civil rights, improving public education, and promoting civic participation. As the Chair of the African American Ministers Council, the representative of a large African American congregation and community activist, I am vitally concerned with preserving and improving our nation’s system of public education so that all children learn and achieve and, so that no child is left behind.
While I am aware that this hearing has been convened to discuss Congress’ ability to enact school choice programs in light of the recently decided Supreme Court decision Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, I question the need for such a hearing. The federal government already provides school choice through policies like those in the recently enacted No Child Left Behind Act and through current charter school policies. On the other hand, I suppose that there is a need to discuss the federal government’s role in supporting current school choice programs since the current Administration will not even fully fund the programs in the No Child Left Behind Act and has failed to increase the basic funding for charter schools.
Nevertheless, since Congress already has the ability to enact school choice programs, I can only assume that this hearing must be about Congress’ role in enacting voucher programs. Consequently, I will focus my comments accordingly.
The Supreme Court’s decision was not about providing choice to parents, but whether the Cleveland voucher program was structured in such a manner to not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Since parents are given the vouchers in the Cleveland program, the narrow 5-4 majority of the Court ruled that they, not the federal government, were the ones choosing to send their children to religious schools, i.e. “parental choice.” Despite the fact that this ruling is contrary to decades of law defining the relationship between the church and state, the Court stated that there was sufficient “parental choice” present in the Cleveland voucher program to not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. However, the Court did not discuss whether voucher programs in general would withstand constitutional scrutiny nor whether the federal government should enact similar programs nationally.
Even before the ruling of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, voucher proponents made the misleading claim that they were interested in providing choice to parents and students. However, this Congress should not pursue vouchers because vouchers do not provide true choice to parents. Vouchers could never provide true school choice to parents. Private schools were established to be selective in their admission of students, thus giving choice to the private school and not the parent. Unlike public schools, private schools are not required to adhere to federal guidelines requiring that any institution in receipt of federal funds abide by federal anti-discrimination laws. As a result, at the insistence of voucher proponents, private schools would be able to maintain their current exemptions to certain anti-discrimination laws, and exclude students based on religion, gender, limited English proficiency and disability. For example, private voucher schools in Cleveland can and do exclude special education students. Further, voucher schools, unlike public schools, may and do expel students easily, so that large numbers of students in the program one year simply “disappear” the next year.
Additionally, proponents often insist that vouchers enable taxpayers to better control their child’s education. Yet, many students with vouchers will still be ineligible or unable to attend many private schools with long waiting lists and restrictive admission standards. A 1998 report from the U.S. Department of Education found that 85% of large central city private schools surveyed would “definitely or probably” not be willing to participate in a voucher program if they were required to accept “students with special needs such as learning disabilities, limited English proficiency, or low achievement.”
While many of the witnesses here today may espouse the effectiveness of voucher initiatives, I intend to reveal the underlying intent of many voucher proposals across this country that purport to help African American students. As an African American minister of a predominately African American congregation, I am well aware of the tales often told to my parishioners about the wonderful opportunities voucher initiative present to our community. Voucher proponents claim that the so-called competition created by vouchers will force public schools to improve. Nevertheless, this is a hollow claim. In fact, research better supports the claim that accountability, testing, and increased resources lead to public school improvement, not so called competition from vouchers.
Education is not a competition, with only some students “winning” the competition. Diverting money from public schools through the use of vouchers hurts the very students who rely on the promise of public education. Vouchers affect only a select few while leaving the overwhelming majority of students behind in underfunded public schools. Thus, voucher programs only serve to funnel federal taxpayer dollars to sectarian schools and mislead parents about the options they provide. If the intent were to truly help low-income African American students, then priority would be given to funding those schools educating the majority of African American students - public schools. Instead, voucher programs rob the majority of African American public school students, and students in general, of precious resources.
For example, while the U.S. Supreme Court may have declared the Cleveland, Ohio voucher system constitutional, the Court did not dispute the fact that this program has cost taxpayers over $43 million. The vast majority of these funds was taken from disadvantaged pupil impact aid that otherwise would have gone to the most disadvantaged children in the Cleveland public schools. In addition, Wisconsin taxpayers paid $61 million to fund the Milwaukee voucher program for two years (1998-2000). Consequently, Milwaukee’s public schools were forced to cut spending by roughly $45 million over two years. By the 1999-2000 school year, at least 60 percent of Wisconsin superintendents reported that budgetary constraints had forced them to cut school maintenance and improvement funds.
Moreover, private school vouchers are not practical. Voucher initiatives will do little to nothing to help the majority of students because private schools were not created to fulfill the duties of educating all of our nation’s students. For instance, in my state of Georgia, Governor Roy Barnes does not support private school vouchers because they are not capable of serving the majority of students in the state. Instead, private school vouchers only serve to divert precious resources from the public school system that continues to educate 90 percent of our nation’s children.
Considering the new accountability measures in the No Child Left Behind Act, it is irresponsible for Congress to support proposals that direct public funds to schools over which the public does not exercise effective oversight. Exactly the same accountability should be demanded of schools accepting federal funds no matter if they are private or public. These methods should be allowed to work without the destructive false choice of private school vouchers. Voucher initiatives fail to require participating schools to adopt academic standards like those just adopted under No Child Left Behind Act, nor do they require participating schools to hire qualified teachers or uphold the same standard of facility maintenance. Voucher proponents are not willing to hold private schools to the same kind of standards and accountability that they demand of public schools.
For instance, there are serious accountability problems in the Cleveland voucher schools. Despite all the hoopla by supporters, an independent evaluation of the program has found no significant academic gains by voucher students. Individual voucher schools have had a number of problems. One school that was in the voucher program operated for two years despite the fact that its 110 year-old building had no fire alarm or sprinkler system, and was under a fire watch requiring staff to check for fires every 30 minutes. Lead-based paint, which can cause brain damage in children, was found in the school at a level eight times greater than generally regarded as safe. Additionally, the school had to repay nearly $70,000 in tax dollars because it was getting voucher money for students that were not in the school at all. Similar problems at another voucher school were compounded by clearly inadequate classroom instruction in which the school was effectively a video school where students sat in front of a TV and watched recorded lessons on screen. Clearly, accountability remains a serious problem in voucher schools and Congress should not be a part of sponsoring such unaccountability.
The claim is often invoked that African Americans support voucher initiatives; therefore, Congress should support voucher proposals to help the African American community. However, this is simply not true. A 2001 Zogby International poll offered African Americans five options for improving education. Among African Americans, the choice of “providing parents with school vouchers” finished dead last of the five options. In fact, African-Americans chose “reducing class sizes” over vouchers by a 7-to-1 margin. A 2001 poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation found that 61 percent of blacks and 59 percent of Latinos would rather see more funding “go toward the public schools than go to a voucher program.” Black America’s Political Action Committee-a group chaired by the archconservative and pro-voucher Alan Keyes-released a poll in July 2002 that some are portraying as a sign that African Americans support vouchers. However, the poll asked black voters whether, if given the option, they would keep their children in regular public schools (45 percent) or enroll them in either a public charter school or a private school (48 percent). Because it lumps together charter schools (public schools with accountability standards) with private schools that have no required accountability standards, this poll, in fact, does not support the assertion that African Americans support private schools.
It is frequently said that the only poll that matters is on Election Day. At the ballot box, African Americans were instrumental in resoundingly defeating voucher initiatives in Michigan and California. African American voters in Michigan rejected vouchers by 77% to 23%. In California, Latino voters rejected vouchers by the same margin. Detroit voters turned down the voucher proposal by an 82-18% margin. What this tells us is that when voters are educated about the realities of vouchers, that they choose to invest in public schools so that the vast majority of the nation’s children can receive a quality education, not just a select few.
Voucher initiatives undermine efforts to immediately and effectively address the needs of the majority of this nation’s children by diverting precious funding away from public school reforms that have proven success rates.
The fact is that we know a lot about some proven reform programs that work.
In Wisconsin, for example, there’s a program called Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) that reduces class sizes in early grades in schools serving poor children. SAGE works. The evidence is clear that SAGE helps close the achievement gap between white and minority students - with long-lasting results. You would think that with that kind of proven result, public officials would be falling over themselves to replicate that success. Unfortunately it’s not true. In Wisconsin last year, activists had to work hard to defeat a proposal by the governor to cut millions of dollars out of the SAGE program in order to expand Milwaukee’s voucher program, which by contrast has no demonstrated proof of improving students’ academic achievement in the long run.
Furthermore, successful initiatives like that in Wisconsin have encouraged additional class size reduction proposals that will bring better education to more students. People For the American Way is proud to be taking a leadership role, with the NAACP and other national and state organizations, in helping Florida State Senator Kendrick Meek amend the state Constitution to put limits on class size in Florida public schools. These are the types of initiatives that Congress should be involved in-initiatives that provide meaningful reform and opportunity for all children.
Despite what proponents may say, vouchers have not been proven to accomplish meaningful reform, will not help the majority of African American children, and are not supported by the African American community at large. Vouchers merely divert public taxpayer dollars to private and religious institutions. On the other hand, there are immediate reforms that have been proven to work, such as smaller class sizes and teacher quality initiatives. As a board member of People For the American Way, I support ideas that truly provide effective public school educational options, particularly for low-income students, such as magnet schools, properly run charter schools, and even the recent provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that allows parents in chronically failing public schools the ability to transfer to better performing public schools. These methods can help provide quality public education, with accountability for educational performance and true choice by parents and students. These methods can and should be allowed to work.