Bribing Students Out of Public Schools

By Joseph W. Newman

With the U.S. Supreme Court's recent sidestep in the Milwaukee voucher case, a move that allows private religious schools to remain part of the Milwaukee experiment, the debate over educational choice is heating up again. ( "'Green Light' for School Vouchers?," Nov. 18, 1998.) Advocates of private school choice are continuing to use "exodus" and "market" metaphors so effectively that the images are dictating the terms of the public-policy debate and placing opponents of choice at a distinct disadvantage.

Exodus metaphors portray students and parents fleeing public schools they have rejected as unacceptable. Private school choice inspires "visions of a new exodus" and promises "emancipation" from the "education plantation," writes Daniel McGroarty in Break These Chains (1996), a study of the Milwaukee voucher plan. Chester E. Finn Jr. likes to talk about parents and students "voting with their feet" by leaving public schools and enrolling in private schools. A new group called, appropriately enough, Exodus 2000 is encouraging parents throughout the nation to withdraw their children from "corrupt" public schools.

Once I became aware of exodus metaphors, they seemed to follow me. One evening during the 1997 off-year-election season, for instance, William J. Bennett's voice awakened me from a peaceful slumber in front of the television, booming out on a late-night talk show and urging me and my family to "join the growing...