Vouchers and Teacher Unions

An opinion article in the Wall Street Journal (McCain's School Choice Opportunity) combines two issues that we have talked about recently in our class: vouchers and teacher unions. The author makes primarily a political argument about how John McCain can use his support of vouchers to gain support from African-American voters. Statistically, African-Americans favor school choice, but do not vote for Republican candidates. Likewise, Democrats are supported by African-American voters but can not support school choice because they can not risk alienating the powerful support base of the teachers unions. Thus, McCain can use school choice to gain favor with African-American voters.

Politics aside, I do not think that vouchers would reform BCPSS. The article argues that African-Americans have a 42% higher graduation rate in Catholic schools and that a valuable resource is being squandered as 1300 Catholic schools have closed since 1990, many in the inner-city. I think that vouchers would be an amazing opportunity for some students in this city and is hard to disregard a reform that would help some students reach their potential. However, I do not think that competition would improve BCPSS. I think that it would only further drain human capital from an already deflated system.

However, back to the political issue, it would be such a difficult voting issue as a parent in Baltimore. How can you vote against something that would have the potential to help your student receive an excellent education? Individually, it makes great sense. But collectively, I think vouchers would be detrimental to the city and the state of our schools is a problem that needs to be solved collectively.