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August 18, 2000, Friday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 25; Column
1; Editorial Desk
LENGTH: 602 words
HEADLINE: The Real Education Reformer
BYLINE: By Nina Shokraii Rees; Nina
Shokraii Rees is senior education policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation.
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
The teachers' unions have apparently forgiven Senator Joseph Lieberman for
his past support of school vouchers. But his deviation from the National
Education Association party line goes much deeper than vouchers -- a record that
will undoubtedly become clearer as the campaign moves ahead.
But let's
start with vouchers, an issue Mr. Lieberman said he was just flirting with. He
has supported at least seven bills to promote school choice since 1992. The
first was an amendment offered by Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican,
authorizing $30 million to help low-income parents send their children to
schools of their choice. Another was an amendment offered last summer by Senator
John McCain for a $5.4 billion, three-year pilot program offering one million
children $2,000 vouchers.
During the floor debate on one such
initiative, Mr. Lieberman made his position clear. "The true choice here is
between preserving the status quo at all costs, which is slamming a door in the
face of the parents and children who want to do better, and doing what is
necessary to put those children first," he said. "In other words, asking whether
the status quo of the public education orthodoxy, which is letting down so many
children, is so important that we are willing to sacrifice the hopes and
aspirations of thousands of children for the sake of a process, not for the sake
of the children."
Consider also Mr. Lieberman's efforts to overhaul the
federal role in education. He used this year's reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act to mobilize support
among fellow New Democrats for structural changes in the federal role in
education. His frustration was understandable. The law's Title I program has
consumed more than $120 billion since its creation in 1965 in a largely failed
effort to close the achievement gap between rich and poor students. The law,
initially only 32 pages long and focused on five programs, has ballooned to more
than 1,000 pages and more than 50 programs.
Mr. Lieberman and another
New Democrat, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, introduced a measure that would have
streamlined the more than 50 federal programs into five performance-based block
grants. Each would have focused on specific objectives, like improving teacher
quality and expanding parents' choice of public schools. The Lieberman-Bayh
program also included financial rewards for states that raised student
achievement, and sanctions for those that failed.
This may seem like a
simple concept, but it was the first time Democrats had offered such a
fundamental overhaul of a federal education program -- one that would shift the
attention away from preserving programs to boosting academic achievement,
especially among poor students. The plan also included a drastic increase in the
budget for education, something that would appeal to traditional Democrats.
But the education establishment would have none of it. The National
Education Association urged senators not to vote for the bill, and Ted Kennedy,
the ranking Democrat on the Senate Education Committee, swatted it aside. Nor
was Vice President Al Gore publicly responsive, though Senator Lieberman's
office reportedly sent his proposal to Mr. Gore's campaign staff, according to a
National Journal article in October 1999. The bill went nowhere.
But
Senator Lieberman may get another chance. Since the education law was not
reauthorized this year, the next administration will have the opportunity to
reconsider his plan. The only wrinkle: The presidential candidate who supports
the Lieberman approach is George W. Bush.
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LOAD-DATE: August 18, 2000 
