Tough Choice.

• Author: Miller, John J.

Can school choice win in Michigan? Should it?

When Michigan's Gov. John Engler came out swinging against a state school-choice ballot initiative last year, he attracted national attention. Here was a reform-minded Republican bucking one of his party's few meaningful public-policy ideas. For 10 years, Engler has cut taxes, slashed welfare, and held state spending in check. Private-school choice seems a natural addition to this portfolio, and most observers assumed that the governor would support the school-choice referendum, which would allow some students at failing schools to use tax dollars to pay for private schools. Last September, however, Engler said that because of unfavorable polls, school choice in Michigan "has no hope." Since then he has actually worked to undermine the measure.

Engler's actions were an early sign that school choice could play a major role in this year's presidential election. Vice President Al Gore and Bill Bradley spent much of the Democratic primary season bickering over which of them hated school choice more. George W. Bush and John McCain also tussled with the issue. Bush has proposed awarding $1,500 vouchers to kids in the country's worst schools; McCain is likewise a school-choice booster, though he never outlined a specific plan. In the one non-presidential race that threatens to eclipse all others--Rudy vs. Hillary in New York--school choice is perhaps the candidates' sharpest policy difference. Giuliani has clamored on behalf of school choice for years, while the First Lady, with her teacher-union talking points in hand, apparently believes it's part of a vast conspiracy to destroy public education.

Every election cycle has its themes--the recession in 1992, the Clintons' health-care takeover in 1994, protecting federal entitlements in 1996, a stained blue dress in 1998. School choice has never risen to that level, even though the idea has been around for decades. Milton Friedman proposed that the government pay for education, but not dictate exactly where children receive their schooling, in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom. That provocative suggestion, however, didn't attract much notice outside right-wing cliques until the late 1980s.

Wisconsin passed a school-choice law limited to Milwaukee in 1990, Ohio adopted a program for Cleveland in 1995, and Florida approved a statewide plan last year (struck down in March by a state court). Otherwise, school choice has flopped politically. Congress has essentially ignored the matter, except to pass school choice for kids in the District of Columbia. President Clinton vetoed it. School choice seemed ready for prime time for most of...