IN MAKING HER CASE against a federally funded school voucher pilot program, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has repeatedly said that D.C. voters are firmly opposed to the idea. Thus, she argues, to support vouchers is to oppose home rule. As the basis for her declaration, Ms. Norton cites the results of an exit poll conducted in November for the National School Boards Association. The poll, which she supplied to this page, showed that 76 percent of the 603 voters interviewed opposed school vouchers. But as is true of so much that stirs up this city, Ms. Norton's poll is hardly gospel.
Let's look at the wording of the question posed in the poll. It asked: "Do you favor or oppose giving taxpayer-funded vouchers to parents to pay for their children to attend private schools even if that means less money for public school students?" Note the phrase "even if that means less money for public school students." That's a loaded question if there ever was one. What majority would favor that? It would be just as unfair if voucher supporters sponsored a poll that asked, "Do you favor or oppose giving taxpayer-funded vouchers to parents to pay for their children to attend private schools if that enables them to transfer out of an inferior public school with low test scores?" Imagine the responses to that question.
There is a less prejudicial way to measure public sentiment on the school voucher question. The Post conducted a poll based on random interviews with 1,002 D.C. adults in May 1998 that asked the following: "Do you favor or oppose using federal money in the form of vouchers to help send low-income students in the District to private or parochial school?" In that poll, 56 percent of city residents said they favored the idea, compared with 36 percent who opposed vouchers and 8 percent who had no opinion. Ms. Norton may be aware of that poll as well, since the results and story were published on May 23, 1998.
The Post's findings are consistent with the results of a National Opinion Poll on education conducted with 1,678 adults in May 1999 for the nonpartisan, nonprofit Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The center researches and analyzes issues of concern to African Americans and other minorities. The center's poll found that "support for school vouchers among African Americans, which has fluctuated in past Joint Center polls, grew by 25 percent since 1998 with 60 percent of African American respondents favoring school vouchers." But beyond polls is the question of actual demand for school choice. Not only are parents expressing their strong desire for alternatives, as the popularity of public charter schools attests, but private associations that provide scholarship assistance to D.C. students seeking enrollment in private or parochial schools also report strong requests for help from D.C. parents. Shouting that support for vouchers doesn't exist in the District won't make it so. Neither will over-the-top rhetoric and personal invective that add little substance to the debate.
