[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 25 (Wednesday, March 11, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E356]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          NOT ENOUGH LIFEBOATS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. NEWT GINGRICH

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 11, 1998

  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to submit into the 
Congressional Record this editorial by William Raspberry from the 
Washington Post of March 9, 1998. Parents should have the ability to 
rescue their children from the schools in which they are trapped when 
those schools fail to meet minimum standards of performance and safety. 
If you cannot save every child from these schools, should you refuse to 
save a few? I don't think so, and neither does Mr. Raspberry.

               [From the Washington Post, March 9, 1998]

                          Not Enough Lifeboats

                         (By William Raspberry)

       Before you dismiss his voucher proposal for D.C. schools as 
     too conservative, too insensitive to the poor or too 
     destructive of public education, House Majority Leader Dick 
     Armey wants to remind you of this fact:
       When Ted Forstmann and John Walton put up $6 million of 
     their own money to provide 1,000 scholarships for low-income 
     parents who wanted their children out of D.C. public schools, 
     there were 7,573 applications--about a tenth of the total 
     public school enrollment. These parents, Armey told me in a 
     recent interview, constitute 7,573 rebuttals to whatever 
     anti-voucher case you care to make. They believe that 
     choice--represented in this case by privately funded 
     vouchers--offers their children a better chance, and they 
     want it.
       The Texas Republican has been joined by Rep. William 
     Lipinski (D-Ill.), Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Sen. Dan 
     Coats (R-Ind.) in introducing a bill to fund tuition 
     scholarships for some 2,000 additional poor children here.
       The D.C. Student Opportunity Scholarship Act would provide 
     means-tested tuition supplements that could be used in public 
     or private schools, either in the District or in neighboring 
     counties in Maryland and Virginia. Students whose family 
     incomes fall below the official poverty line would be 
     eligible for the maximum yearly grant of $3,200. Those whose 
     family incomes are above, but less than 185 percent of, the 
     poverty line would get three-quarter scholarships of $2,400.
       Question: Does the scheme represent a noble rescue effort, 
     or does it amount to the abandonment of a sinking school 
     system?
       As far as Armey is concerned, it's like asking whether no 
     one aboard the Titanic should have been permitted to use 
     lifeboats because there weren't enough lifeboats for 
     everybody.
       Armey, who has been involved in a few local schools through 
     a program he started called Tools for Tomorrow, says he has 
     ``seen the lights go on in their eyes'' when children get 
     additional tutorial help or scholarships to better schools. 
     ``They start telling you about how their favorite classes are 
     math and science. And I wonder why we can't provide this sort 
     of opportunity--in private or parochial schools or in public 
     schools--for more children whose parents can't afford it.''
       The most frequently offered answer is that such schemes--
     almost always too limited to serve all the children who need 
     help--amount to a turning away from public education. The 
     parents most likely to seize the opportunities offered are 
     those who have the means to supplement the vouchers and those 
     who already take an active interest in their children's 
     education. The result is a sort of skimming--of children and 
     their parents--that can leave the public schools 
     significantly worse off.
       It's undeniable. But look at it from the viewpoint of 
     parents who grab at the chance to get their children into 
     better schools: Should they be required to keep their 
     children in bad schools to keep those schools from growing 
     worse? Should they be made to wait until we get around to 
     improving all the public schools?
       ``The District of Columbia is interesting, in the sense 
     that it has some really outstanding public schools, and one 
     of the highest per-pupil outlays in the country,'' Armey 
     said. ``But, in candor, it also has some truly awful schools. 
     How can this be? In our visits [with Tools for Tomorrow] the 
     parents keep coming back to one word: discipline. They are 
     talking about discipline in the sense of expecting a certain 
     standard of behavior and discipline in the sense of the rigor 
     with which [private and parochial schools] teach the 
     curriculum.
       ``I don't know if you can make all the schools exercise 
     that kind of discipline. But if it's possible, maybe the best 
     way to make it happen is to put them on notice that they may 
     be about to lose their children.''
       That notion that competition will force the worst schools 
     to improve drives much of the advocacy for vouchers. Does it 
     make sense? I don't know. When New York philanthropist 
     Virginia Gilder offered $2,000 scholarships to every child in 
     Albany's worst-performing school, a sixth of the parents 
     grabbed the offer and took their kids elsewhere. The school 
     board fired the principal, brought in new teachers and 
     undertook a range of improvements. But to expect most poor-
     performing schools to improve with the introduction of 
     vouchers is to believe their poor performance is willful. I'm 
     not sure even the voucher advocates believe that. But surely 
     opponents cannot believe the logic of their counter-argument: 
     that if you can't save everybody--whether from a burning 
     apartment house, a sinking ship or a dreadful school system--
     it's better not to save anybody.

                          ____________________