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A Latter-Day Voucher Convert
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Business New Haven
10/10/2000
By: Laurence D. Cohen
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Former West Hartford schools chief saw both ends of the education spectrum and reached a surprising conclusion
One of the favorite public-relations ploys of the pro-school-voucher folks is the man-bites-dog story - the growing number of “liberals” who are full-throated advocates of giving parents the freedom to pick a school for their kids, but it public, private or parochial.
The list runs from rambunctious left-winger Polly Williams, the black state legislator who fought successfully for vouchers in Milwaukee, to the Rev. Floyd Flake, a black former New York congressman; from a growing number of education-establishment researchers at Harvard, to, of course, our very own Joe Lieberman, who used to support vouchers until Al Gore stole his soul.
The other twist on the same story is the pro-voucher folks' instinct to report on how many prominent opponents of choice didn't send their own kids public schools - folks like Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Jesse Jackson. The latest news tidbit to hit the circuit of the vast, right-wing conspiracy is the confession from Al Davis, chief executive of the New Orleans public schools, who has pulled one of his daughters out of Dad's school system and enrolled her in a private school.
Far, far down the list of folks who might have been expected to become a modern-day convert to vouchers is Peter Relic, who burst from his mommy's womb a full-fledged, education-establishment lefty apologist for spending lots of money on public education as a cure for all that ails it.
Relic earned his Ph.D. in education from Harvard, and plopped himself down in the old U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare as deputy assistant secretary for education. The battle in those days wasn't about bringing the free market to education, but whether the “E” in HEW would be stripped from the agency and given its own seat at the table.
Buoyed by some encouraging words from his old pals at Harvard, and more ominously from national folks at both of the national teachers' unions, Relic was hired as West Hartford's school superintendent for six years in the 1980s.
Project Concern, the voluntary busing program intended to help some of Hartford's kids escape from their miserable schools, was still in its prime during the Relic years - and West Hartford was one of the more enthusiastic suburban players. By 1986, 430 Hartford students attended classes in West Hartford, while 15 West Hartford students attended specialized foreign-language and arts programs in Hartford.
Relic left West Hartford for the top job in Charlotte, N.C., the largest school district in the state, with 73,000 students - about 40 percent of them minority. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg district was operating under a court-ordered desegregation plan, but Relic arrived after the battle was over - and was forced out over issues having more to do with style (a snobby Northeastern style) than substance. Even in Charlotte, vouchers were never a public issue. Only about 12,000 were being bussed - and most of them ended up where they wanted to go.
But since 1991, Relic has been president of the National Association of Independent Schools - and he has come to see the light. “It's all about choice,” he told me, “choice and access to quality education.”
As chief spokesman for about 1,100 independent schools ranging from traditional prep schools to special-education facilities, Relic is enthusiastic about the choices and freedom that vouchers could bring. He sounds like a Milton Friedman love child, all full of promise that the “market will prevail.”
He suggests that there are serious impediments to voucher systems, beyond the traditional obstructionism of the teacher unions and existing public-school bureaucracy. Even among his own members, Relic admits to some fears that a voucher could come with strings attached - especially dangerous strings that would limit the ability of the schools to admit students they think would be most appropriate. “'Independent' means independent from government,” he says. “If government restricts admissions policies, it would be the beginning of the end for independent schools.”
He suggests that the fear-mongering about vouchers that suggests public schools would be destroyed is silly and unrealistic - except, perhaps, for the very worst of schools, in awful school districts, that deserve to be closed.
“This has to be placed in the context of parents deciding what is best for their children,” he says. “Parents do not leave effective schools.”
Laurence D. Cohen is a senior fellow with Yankee Institute for Public Policy.
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