There Is Plenty of Choice Beyond School Vouchers : Education: The Prop. 174 debate overlooks the success of the public schools, where educational options are multiplying without fanfare.

Vouchers promote school choice, proponents claim, and Proposition 174 offers the vouchers with which to make the choices. But among the many voucher proposals aired, the one that’s on Tuesday’s ballot is, far and away, the worst.

Still, the idea that families should be offered choices among schools will not--and should not--go away. Vouchers are just one strategy, not even the most promising, for making these educational options widely available. The idea has been debated in educational policy circles since the late 1950s, when University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman proposed using public dollars to send children to private schools. Ever since, better and better variations have been floated.

The former dean of Harvard’s School of Education, Theodore R. Sizer, has urged that vouchers be awarded to poor children, since they frequently receive the worst public-school education. Christopher Jencks, a social-policy analyst, has advocated that vouchers be made available to all, but that their dollar amount vary with the needs of the children. And two Berkeley professors, John Coons and Steven Sugarman, would allow parents to decide how much they want to sacrifice for their children’s education--what percentage of their earnings they’re willing to spend--and then vary the size of the voucher accordingly, so that, regardless of a family’s wealth, the bigger the effort, the more the voucher is worth.

All these post-Friedman proposals require that the state set standards for schools at which vouchers can be used. They include guarantees that parents considering voucher schools be provided with information to help them make informed choices. They mandate that popular, oversubscribed schools admit at least some students by lottery, to assure that families, not just school-admission officers, have the choice. They outlaw discrimination, either in who’s admitted or in what’s taught--schools that teach hatred would get no state money. The plans all concentrate public dollars on the children who need public help most--the poor and the handicapped.

Such safeguards--not a single one of which is included in Proposition 174--answer many of the criticisms that have been leveled at vouchers. But there remains deep concern that, because vouchers could be “cashed in” at religious schools, the state would inevitably promote--and maybe meddle in--churchly affairs. There is also fear that families, especially poor families who have had all-too few choices to make, may select schools badly. Buying an education with a voucher isn’t like picking out a brand of soda; it’s more like picking a doctor under Medicaid, a none-too-happy experience.

In Milwaukee, a voucher plan that enables poor families to send their children to private schools has been operating for several years, the only such venture in the nation. There, families report they are happier about education than they used to be, which is nice. But their kids are doing no better academically than they did in the public schools, and that’s still the bottom line.

Choice of another kind--choice among public schools--has been flourishing for the past decade. It’s the quiet education revolution of our times. Magnet schools, alternative schools, open enrollment: There’s scarcely a community that doesn’t offer some options to its students. In East Harlem, one of the most troubled communities in inner-city New York, an educational choice plan has been running for 20 years, with remarkable success.

California has been a leader in the public-school choice movement. In Los Angeles, the best of the magnet schools attract students from across the immense district, and the same is true in a number of other cities, where publicly run alternatives are beacons of excellence.

Building on that track record, California is actively promoting choice. A 1992 state law requires that all districts must allow families to pick among public schools, so long as there is space available; and barriers to student transfers across district boundaries have mostly been chopped down.

The new charter schools, 100 scattered across California with more expected, go even farther in promoting choice. Once these publicly financed and independently run academies get the approval of public-school officials, they’re off and running. By opening a charter school, pedagogical pioneers, teachers and parents with ideas of their own can go it alone--with public dollars to back them.

By contrast, even the most interesting of the voucher plans is no more than an untested, and potentially risky, idea. It makes sense to encourage choice, because children aren’t cut out of cookie-cutter molds, and there’s no reason to believe their education should be similarly standardized. But it is sound counsel to concentrate on the public schools, where the voting, taxpaying citizenry still sets the standards and calls the shots.