Morning Shots

With all the trappings of an IMPORTANT WASHINGTON EVENT, including the presence of the top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House education committees, the Commission on No Child Left Behind yesterday unveiled a report that should be called “No Idea Left Behind.” That’s not meant as a compliment.

With George W. Bush’s signature domestic program, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, headed for reauthorization, this bi-partisan, blue-ribbon panel, led by two stellar ex-governors and funded by Gates and other big-deal private foundations under the aegis of the august Aspen Institute, was supposed to provide a blueprint for the law’s rewrite.

Quantitatively, it succeeded. Its sprawling 200 page report, capped with 75 separate recommendations, proffers solutions to almost every problem ailing U.S. education. What it doesn’t do is sketch a coherent vision for NCLB version 2.0. If conservatives thought Bush’s original law was a dubious venture, heavy as it is on big-government mandates and light on school choice, this version would be markedly worse. It’s the antithesis of what you might expect from former Wisconsin Governor and commission co-chair Tommy Thompson, one of America’s foremost proponents of school choice (and of state flexibility in welfare reform), who must have been consumed by his nascent Presidential campaign and left the drafting to staff.

The future the Commission depicts gives Washington yet more power over the nation’s schools; its summary recommendations use the word “require” (often followed by the word “states”) at least 35 times. By contrast, we found just half a dozen “allows” or “permits.” Seems the panel is six times more interested in issuing new federal mandates than providing flexibility to states, districts or schools.

This approach to NCLB reform ignores the big lesson of the past five years: it’s hard enough to force recalcitrant states and

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Last year was the most successful year ever for state school choice initiatives. This year could be even better. In the last two weeks, lawmakers in Georgia voted for sweeping school choice plans, Utah passed a landmark school choice program, and New York’s new liberal governor made a pitch for private school tuition breaks.

In late January, the Georgia state Senate approved a plan that would offer tuition scholarships to public school students who qualify for special education services. The plan is based on Florida’s McKay Scholarship program for students with disabilities, which currently serves 17,000 students. In all, about 186,000 public school students in Georgia would be eligible for scholarships to attend a school of their parents’ choice. The legislation will now go to the state’s General Assembly.

The same day also marked an important political victory for school choice backers in the Empire State. Governor Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, included a tax break for private schooling in his education budget proposal. Under Spitzer’s plan, families whose children attend private school could claim a $1,000 tax deduction per student. The tax deduction could provide as much as $30 million annually in relief from double taxation for families that pay private school tuition and taxes to support public schools. Similar tax breaks for private school families are on the books in Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota.

Governor Spitzer’s deduction would be worth, at most, a few hundred dollars per family each year. But it’s noteworthy that the proposal is being advanced by a leading Democrat, since it signals philosophical support for parental choice in education.

No surprise, the usual special-interest groups aren’t on board. Even though Spitzer’s overall education plan calls for $7 billion in new public school spending, public education interest groups have come out in full force against the tuition tax

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School reformers should be cheering at the plan incoming New York governor Eliot Spitzer announced recently to reform the state’s mediocre public schools.  It was shockingly bold – I use the word “shockingly” not only because of what he proposed, but also because I didn’t have high expectations: he’s a Democrat who was endorsed by the powerful state teachers union, there’s little support for genuine school reform in either party in the state legislature, and he already has his hands full with a number of major battles, including reforming New York’s massive, wasteful healthcare system.

Despite this, Spitzer announced a plan that, if passed, will propel New York into the forefront of education reform efforts nationwide.  Spitzer really seems to understand this issue (and no doubt has his eye on national public office), telling Jonathan Alter of Newsweek,"The national Democratic Party has got to understand that real education reform is a central issue both politically and for our economic future.  We have to get our arms around the idea that if there’s no performance, you must remove those responsible for the failure."

The single boldest part of Spitzer’s plan is a proposal that he did not detail in his speech: in his budget released a few days later, Spitzer included a tax deduction to allow families with an annual income of $116,000 or less to deduct $1,000 from their state income taxes for tuition paid to public, private, or parochial schools. This is big, in that it gives parents more options when it comes to picking the best school for their children.

While this is not a perfect plan – the deduction is not a refund, which would allow families from the lowest income brackets to receive cash back from the state for tuition payments – it’s a major step

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