This week marks the beginning not only of a new school year but also a new round of debate over vouchers. In a Washington Post op ed, D.C. school board president Peggy Cooper Cafritz, along with D.C. mayor Anthony Williams and D.C. councilman Kevin Chavous - all former voucher opponents - appealed to Congress with a sense of urgency, arguing that though the pace of education reform in the nation's capital has (they assert) been "steady," it can't happen quickly enough to help students currently trapped in failing D.C. schools. (A vote on whether Congress will fund a D.C. voucher program is expected in the House tomorrow.) While these elected DC leaders were making a pragmatic argument for vouchers, Pacific Research Institute education director Lance Izumi took a more idealistic approach in National Review Online, arguing that voucher proponents should not rely on research to defend their position because, even if the research does not show that vouchers improve student achievement, parents should still be afforded the right to choose the best school for their children. Meanwhile, school choice foes in Florida kicked off a vigorous effort to suspend the state's corporate tax credit voucher program (which gives companies dollar-for-dollar tax credits for money donated to nonprofit groups that award scholarships), alleging, among other things, that these vouchers supported a school led by a man with "terrorist connections" - evidence, they claim, that there is not enough public accountability for the schools receiving vouchers. And in a flattering (but well earned) profile published in the Washington Post on the eve of an expected House of Representatives vote on the proposed D.C. program, the estimable Nina Shokraii Rees, deputy undersecretary of education, was dubbed the "Thomas Paine of school choice."
"Washington's children deserve more choices," by Anthony Williams, Kevin Chavous and Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Washington Post, September 3, 2003
"It's fair," by Lance T. Izumi, National Review Online, September 3, 2003
"Tougher voucher rules proposed," by S.V. Date and Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post, August 29, 2003
"Veto vouchers," editorial, Florida Today, September 1, 2003
"Conflicting American views on school vouchers," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, August 26, 2003
"From Iran, the 'Thomas Paine' of school choice," by Dana Milbank, Washington Post, September 3, 2003