by AFT President Sandra Feldman
April 2000

Let's make sure
that poor children
get the same
educational basics
as other kids.

What should we do to help poor children who attend underperforming schools? This question is a real challenge to people of conscience, but vouchers--the quick-and-easy answer you often hear--would not solve the problem. There is plenty of research showing that, despite all the hoopla, voucher schools do not get any better results than comparable public schools. And we know that vouchers would hurt the education of the great majority of poor kids because they would siphon off money from the public schools where the majority of poor children--in fact most of our kids--are and will continue to be educated. Nevertheless, all of us who care about kids worry a lot about the short run, about youngsters who are going to failing schools now.

But there is a solution. Instead of handing parents a voucher and washing our hands of the problem, let's make sure every child can go to a good public school by adopting a strategy that is already successful in a number of school districts: Close down consistently failing schools at semester's end and redesign and reopen them in the fall with proven programs, new leadership, and, where necessary, a negotiated change in the mix of staff. Offer extra pay, if needed, to attract the best teachers.

Along with this strategy, we should insist on public school choice, which allows children to transfer to successful public schools and guarantees them access (as religious and other private schools will not).

Yes, it’s hard to turn around low-performing schools quickly. But the American Federation of Teachers is working with districts across the country to make it happen, and we'd like to see it done in every failing public school. Unlike vouchers, this approach is uncontestably effective. Moreover, it would guarantee parents good schools, rather than telling them to find a non-public school that may, or may not, accept their child, may or may not charge tuition equal to the voucher, and may, or may not, do a better job.

Something We've Never Tried

But in the long run, we'll need to do much more to give all disadvantaged children the educational opportunities they need. While poverty is no excuse for bad schools, and lots of poor kids do well despite the odds, the effects of poverty can’t be denied. So, instead of another failed experiment with vouchers, let's do something we've never tried: Guarantee educational adequacy for poor children.

I am not talking about "throwing money" at school districts that are badly managed. I'm talking about specifically funding what specifically works in education, thereby assuring poor children the same basics most middle-class children get and that we want for all children:

• Quality, early childhood education. Poor kids enter kindergarten much less prepared for school than more advantaged kids. They know many fewer words, for example. High-quality preschool makes an enormous difference. The children who get it do much better than those who don’t, all the way through to graduation.
• Small classes, especially in the early grades. Small classes in the first few years of school raise the achievement of all children but especially minority youngsters. We also know that gains made by public school children in smaller classes trump any gains made by voucher children.
• A rich curriculum taught by fully qualified and highly skilled teachers. This means, in part, making teacher salaries and professional conditions in poor districts competitive with those of wealthier communities and other professions.

Whether one has a moral or a pragmatic view of poor children's education, the case for vouchers is feeble compared to the benefits of turning around low-performing schools or the promise of educational adequacy for all children. Indeed, the chief thing vouchers would do is hand off our responsibility for educating poor children to the untender mercies of the market--which hasn't been very good at solving the health or housing, or even the food shopping needs, of poor people up to now--and make poor children disappear from our consciences.

Americans don't want to abandon public schools--or their belief that public schools offer the best road out of poverty and into the mainstream--and we don't have to. We can afford to provide educational adequacy in public schools for every poor child in America. That's the path to take, and we should begin right now.