More favor school choice

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 28, 1998 | by Sean Scully

More Americans support public aid to private schools, good news for Republicans who hope school choice will lure traditional Democrats, particularly blacks, into the GOP fold.

A majority of Americans--51 percent--favor government support for private-school tuition, according to a survey sponsored by the Gallup Organization and Phi Delta Kappa International, a professional education fraternity. Blacks and other minorities support the idea overwhelmingly--68 percent.

"There's been a very marked shift in the polling in the last five years," says John F. Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy. In 1994, the annual Gallup Poll found that 54 percent of Americans opposed school-choice plans.

Republicans long have pushed for some form of public support for private schools. But Democratic legislators generally have opposed such plans, saying it would drain money and talent from public schools. They also have raised constitutional objections, claiming that the use of tax money for private religious schools would violate the separation of church and state.

Both parties have made education a major issue for the November congressional elections. Democrats have championed plans to use federal money to build and maintain school buildings, while Republicans have pushed educational-savings accounts, allowing parents to save money tax-flee for school expenses. Although Democratic leaders oppose school-choice legislation, the poll found that rank-and-file Democrats are even more emphatic than Republicans in their support for some government aid--51 percent of Democrats want vouchers to help parents pay for private-school tuition and 61 percent want tax credits. Republicans, meanwhile, were split on vouchers--47 percent in favor and 48 percent opposed--while 57 percent favored tax credits.

The survey raises other concerns for the GOP. Pollsters found that more Americans--39 percent--think Democrats are "more interested" in improving public education than Republicans. Only 28 percent of those polled believed that Republicans are more interested in the issue.

"What's clear is that Democrats are still viewed as more on the side of the American public on the education issue," says Melissa Ratcliff, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee.

Republicans dismissed the numbers, however, noting that the Democrats' lead on the issue has narrowed since 1996. In that year, 44 percent credited Democrats with more interest in education and 27 percent favored Republicans. "Education is no longer a Democrat issue," concludes Mary Crawford, spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

National Education Association President Bob Chase downplayed the school-choice question in a statement, focusing on other responses that show parents generally like their local schools. "Rather than vouchers for a fraction of students, Americans prefer proven, successful programs that benefit all students," Chase wrote.

The poll may not be unqualified good news for advocates of public support for private schools: 75 percent of those surveyed say private schools that receive public money "should be accountable to the state in the way public schools are accountable."

And 70 percent of respondents believe private schools that accept public money should "be required to accept students from a wider range of backgrounds and academic backgrounds than is now the case."

Advocates of public aid "had better think a little bit about the results they are going to get," Jennings says.