Black leadership and vouchers.

In his commentary, "Why Blacks Support Vouchers," on the opposite page, Michael Leo Owens maintains that vouchers "offer the only hope available to many poor students trapped in the nation's worst schools."

In nearly the same breath, he admonishes readers to "be honest," stating that the Cleveland voucher program will not "expand the educational opportunities of all black children." In addition, he admits that "my generation knows that vouchers have serious limitations."

What Owens touts as hope certainly does not appear to offer much, and that is just on the surface. Indeed, as he puts it, if "no voucher system can save a failing public school district" [if] "poorly funded vouchers don't offer much of a chance for poor children to enroll in expensive alternative schools ... ensure parental involvement [or] end the resistance of many suburban schools to black enrollment," surely black leaders are well within their rights to question such a risky approach to achieving educational goals for their black constituents.

How hope can be found in such a quagmire of faults and limitations is a real concern.

Flawed Notions

Owens' approach to the issue of vouchers is flawed in that he makes judgmental claims based on survey results (which can offer notoriously limited results based on sample availability). He fails to fully consider the history of urban education and pointedly ignores the gains made by the Atlanta Public Schools, all in favor of embracing tired rhetoric to indict black leaders who question vouchers. If, as Owens claims, "Our support for vouchers is essentially a critique of politicians' ineffectiveness," one must wonder, will the means justify the end?

In Terry M. Moe's recent book, Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public, the author claims that "virtually all surveys on the voucher issue rivet attention on just one number: the percentage of Americans who express support for vouchers. In an intensely democratic society, this is freighted with profound significance. If most Americans support vouchers, normative grounds can be used to argue that policymakers who value their jobs would be wise to respond."

In claiming that urban black parents support vouchers while contending their leaders do not suggests that black leadership is out of touch with reality. More importantly, this claim implicitly suggests black leaders are foolishly standing in the way of educational gains by black students.

As an example of black leadership impeding black educational gains, Owens cites Atlanta, where I served for four years as superintendent in the 1990s. He claims that "even in a city of black electoral empowerment and black wealth, black children have a tough time learning and performing well."

One has to wonder how Owens has come to his conclusions. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last September that "69 percent of Atlanta 4th-graders passed the reading portion of the curriculum exam compared to 47 percent the previous year. Smaller, but still significant jumps occurred in math and English, the other two subjects tested on the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Test." If this is an example of how "black bureaucratic enfranchisement has yet to affect black educational achievement," perhaps Owens already has received his 40 acres and a mule.

Granted, the age-old problems regarding urban education still need to be addressed, and there is considerable room for change. Does this mean that any new suggestion is to be wholeheartedly embraced? Vouchers may seem appealing and they may even be presented as a well-intentioned option, but Owens would be well-served to closely examine the history of so-called reforms and their comprehensive effect on overall educational gains.

History clearly indicates that many of these supposed major gains for black students (Chapter I, school choice, busing for racial integration, alternative and magnet programs, special education) never lived up to their touted potential. If they had, the issue of vouchers would be redundant.

Rightful Opposition

Contrary to Owens' claims, black role models in the classroom, in school administration and in government have combined with high-level black leadership to effect change. While nothing happens overnight, the numbers are there. The academic performance of black children in Atlanta is improving.

It is a sad but undeniable fact that if black leaders had not questioned and opposed a number of reform options, the education of black children would be more stunted than it is currently. The history of policies following emancipation and the Civil Rights movement are constant reminders for black leaders of their responsibility and right to vigorously question and oppose any plan until it can be shown to improve academic outcomes for black children rather than benefit other children at the expense of black students.

Vouchers do not offer the only hope available to poor students. They do not and cannot systematically expand the educational opportunities for black children. In short, they are a hoax, not a hopeful solution.

Ben Canada, a past president of AASA, is an education consultant. He can be reached at P.O. Box 3280, Atlanta, GA 30302. E-mail: [e-mail]