Alarm Bells Are Ringing at Public Schools

When the dust settled in the rubble of defeat for Proposition 174, California’s school choice initiative, gloating educrats managed to stifle their giggles long enough to indulge in the piety of reform. Gary Hart, then chairman of the Senate Education Committee and now Gov. Gray Davis’ chief education advisor, wrote that the defeat of Proposition 174 “was not a victory but a wake-up call.” Similar sentiments were echoed by Del Weber, then head of the California Teachers Assn., who offered that the campaign had “given teachers--CTA members--a wake-up call. . . . “

That was nearly six years ago, and despite Willie Brown’s vaunted “education summit” which followed, the sweet talk of reform soon was mired in the association’s return to resistance. While educrats purported to acknowledge a wake-up call on the one hand, the other was pounding the snooze button.

But over the past year, that muffled alarm has turned into a 95-decibel scream for change as parents across America call for dramatic restructuring of the calcified education establishment. Most interestingly, much of the criticism has come from the political left. Among the events triggering the movement to shake up the schools’ Luddites is a private Children’s Scholarship Fund. Fueled by donations from two determined philanthropists, Ted Forstmann and John Walton, the fund is distributing scholarships nationally to low-income families desperate to rescue their children from failed systems. These scholarships allow them to send their children to the public, private or parochial school of their choice. Forty thousand were selected by lottery out of 1.25 million families who applied.

Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Andrew Young--famous for courageous civil rights advocacy in the ‘60s--has placed the fund’s effort among “moments of moral awakening” in America, likening the effect of these scholarships to Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from the Birmingham jail. (In contrast to Jesse Jackson, who sent his children to exclusive private schools while adamantly opposing school choice for those too poor to afford it.)

Other Democratic Party realists have opened their eyes to change. For example, the Democratic Leadership Council has begun scolding the horse-and-buggy liberals, citing the Children’s Scholarship Fund, the Florida Legislature’s recent enactment of state-funded private school vouchers and similar proposals in Texas, New Mexico, New York and Michigan.

In its official publication, “The New Democrat,” the council editorializes this month that: “The developments of late April should be a wake-up call (there’s that phrase again) to liberal Democrats who have blocked, watered down, or gummed up reform such as charter schools and other types of public school choice, higher standards and an end to social promotion for students, and accountability for teachers and administrators. . . . Democrats and others who attack vouchers and defend dysfunctional public schools are getting clobbered.”

This reference to charter schools begs mention of a famous former Democrat and devoted leftist who symbolizes even more how today’s sunshine disinfects yesterday’s rot. Yup. It’s the very same Jerry Brown--only now beaming from a different direction as the Independent mayor of Oakland.

Mayor Brown (who I predict will be a third-party candidate for president next year) came unhinged last month when Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) proposed legislation sponsored by the California Teachers Assn. to require that all staff in charter schools join unions.

California’s charter schools were established to foster the existence of local schools with the freedom to innovate outside the backward constraints of the state education code and local school board rules. The CTA’s attempted muscling of the locals caused Brown to launch a blast at Migden co-signed by 10 Oakland clergy and parent leaders: “These courageous parents . . . will not be defeated now by distant political machinations over which they have no voice or control. . . .” Brown warned that he and others would “not back down or cravenly accept the sellout of our right to determine our educational destiny.”

Pressured by her own party and Davis’ lack of support, Migden caved as hundreds of charter school advocates complemented Brown’s withering attack with a rally at the state Capitol.

Add the likelihood of another school choice initiative being placed on the ballot next year and the recent repudiation of the California Teachers Assn. by teachers in one of its own Orange County affiliates, and the result is new hope for those dedicated parents, teachers and administrators who advocate reform.

Did someone say “wake-up call”?