Sign Up For Our Newsletter

N.J. Democrats must not block Opportunity Scholarship Act

Editorial
The Star-Ledger
January 1, 2012

For more than a year, the Legislature has been prodding and poking at a bill that would provide a lifeline to poor students in failing districts by giving them a voucher to attend private schools.

Enough. This is a small pilot program that will affect about 5,000 students in a public school system of nearly 1.4 million. It will be restricted to the worst districts in the state, where most of the opponents of this bill would never send their own children.

To block this experiment in light of the persistent failure of these schools, and the demonstrated desire of so many parents to find better alternatives, is to deny the basic civil rights of these kids.

The bill, known as the Opportunity Scholarship Act, would allow businesses to divert tax dollars into a scholarship fund, money the state would use to award scholarships of $6,000 a year to K-8 students and $9,000 to high school students.

The first objection is that this would divert money from needy urban schools. That would be a valid reason to kill the bill if it were true. But the bill would compensate the host districts by leaving them with a portion of the money earmarked for the children who take these scholarships.

So if a district gets $16,000 in state aid, for example, as many of the failing districts do, the state would provide a $6,000 scholarship for the K-8 child and leave the remaining $10,000 for the district. Per-student spending in conventional schools would not fall — it would rise.

Remember, too, that New Jersey’s urban districts spend enormous sums of money. Some, like Union City, have used it to remarkable effect, lifting student performance. This program would be restricted to districts that have squandered the opportunity, such as Camden.

A more reasonable concern is that ambitious families would abandon conventional schools, leaving them even weaker than before. But a small program like this won’t have a big effect either way. And if allowing ambitious kids to leave bad schools is harmful, then we should eliminate charter schools as well, and magnet schools that admit only the best students. In effect, this argument says that while families with money should be free to leave, families who are poor should have no choice, even when they reach for it.

Finally, some object because many of these scholarships will be used at parochial schools, mixing church and state. But the state pays for busing and textbooks at parochial schools today, a more direct form of support. And the point of the church-state separation is to ensure that government shows no preference for one religion over another. This program achieves that by leaving the choice up to parents.

What is holding this up? In a word, Democrats. The teachers union, a pillar of the party’s support, is dead-set against this and party leaders are hesitant to anger the union again after passing pension and health reforms last summer.

But this bill would benefit only poor children in cities, which should be a core concern. It is no wonder that polls show stronger support for vouchers among minority voters, or that the pioneering voucher programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland were sponsored by black urban legislators.

This is a gut check for Democrats. If they act fast, there is time to start the program this fall. If they delay again, as expected, it underscores how badly the party needs a housecleaning.