Norquist: The right choice for cities

Many more middle-class parents would live in big cities if they could pick the schools their kids attend, argues Congress for the New Urbanism president and CEO John Norquist.

The former Democratic mayor of Milwaukee explains why he is rooting for this GOP initiative in a Wall Street Journal commentary.

Norquist launched one of the nation's first and longest-running school choice programs 20 years ago.

"For 20 years there's been debate about parental school choice, but only a few places actually have it. Milwaukee has had choice since 1991. At first it was very limited — no religious schools, the program restricted to families with very low incomes, and a cap on total enrollment of 1,000. But parents are now able to choose religious schools, the income limit has been raised to 175 percent of the federal poverty line ($39,113), and the cap has increased to 22,500 students."

The handful of other school choice programs in Cleveland, Florida, DC, and Arizona, are also limited, Norquist explains.

" ... Florida's program requires a public school to fail, with failure measured by the state, not by parents. And all choice programs have limitations that undermine the desire of parents to have their children attend a school in which they have confidence," he explains.

We have a de facto system of school choice throughout America — but one that undermines the economy of cities, he says.

"If a young couple moves to, say, St. Louis and chooses a home in one of the city's revitalizing neighborhoods like Forest Park, everything goes well until their first child approaches school age. They might decide to pay for private education at one of the few such schools in the city. Or they might take a chance on getting into one of the city's elite magnet schools. But what looks like the surest way to enroll their child in a good school is to move to a suburb, such as Webster Grove. The schools there draw from a mostly affluent population, have a large tax base behind each child, and are free of charge if you live there.

"So although the couple enjoys urban life in St. Louis, they leave for better school opportunities. This process occurs all across the country; many parents with resources move away from cities and suburbs where poor people live."

Now, Norquist says, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is proposing to expand the Milwaukee program to allow all parents, regardless of income, to use a voucher to enroll in any public or private school. "This will address two problems with the current choice program," Norquist says. "One, the cap on total enrollment has forced parents onto waiting lists and into lotteries. Two, the income limit has the effect of isolating low-income students from other more affluent students."

Liberals have been reluctant to support school choice for fear that it will "drain resources from government-operated schools," he notes, and adds: "Isn't it worse to support a system that rewards concentration of the rich in exclusive suburbs segregated from the poor?"

Many more families, including those in the middle and upper income brackets, "would live in economically and racially diverse cities once school choice was universally available.

"If expanded, Milwaukee's choice program will demonstrate this to the whole country," Norquist concludes.