Dole Pushes Plan for Low-Income Students to Select School of Choice

Striking a populist note, Bob Dole on Thursday proposed a $5-billion project to help low- and middle-income families send their children to the school of their choice, whether public, private or religious.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said his joint federal-state program would provide “opportunity scholarships”--annual grants to qualifying families of $1,000 per child from kindergarten through eighth grade and $1,500 per high school student. The federal share would amount to $2.5 billion; the 15 or so states chosen to participate in the four-year program would make contributions to match that total.

Dole, who would allow states to determine eligibility criteria and to contribute more if they wish, described school choice as “a civil rights movement of 1990s . . . [and] an idea whose time has come.”

He likened the scholarships to the G.I. Bill, a program whose grants for education helped millions, including himself, attend college after World War II. “I want all of our children to have the same opportunities,” he said.

But critics, including the powerful National Education Assn., blasted the plan as the type of “voucher” approach to funding education that has been rejected by voters in several states, including California. These foes contend such plans would drain scarce public funds from public school systems.

Responding to Dole’s proposal, NEA President Keith Geiger said, “The answer is not running away from struggling or failing schools, but rolling up our sleeves to work together to create the best possible public schools.”

Dole is using a three-day swing through the Midwest to emphasize public education reform. In Minneapolis on Wednesday, he deplored the state of public education and blasted President Clinton as “the pliant pet of militant teachers unions.” Dole’s trip also is designed to refocus his campaign on substantive issues and away from a series of verbal gaffes that has robbed him of any political momentum.

His scholarship plan offers a clear distinction between himself and Clinton. The president supports allowing parents to choose among public schools but is against using tax money to send children to private or religious schools.

A Clinton campaign spokesman charged that Dole’s proposal would “tear down public education,” in part by “dramatically reducing our investment in public schools.”

Dole’s program, which he unveiled to an audience at a Catholic college in Milwaukee, would cover about 4 million children, or about 10% of all U.S. students from kindergarten through high school.

He touted his plan as a way to put poor students on equal footing with those who can already afford private schools. “Some families already have school choice,” he said. “They have it because they happen to be wealthy. If it’s right for them, it’s right for low-income and middle-income families too.”

But even some school-choice supporters conceded that the amount of scholarship money in Dole’s plan may be insufficient, given that the average annual tuition at a private elementary school is about $1,600 and at a private high school is about $2,500.

‘It’s a start,” said Wisconsin Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, a Republican and potential Dole running mate. He noted that Wisconsin’s own school-choice program provides more than $3,600 per pupil for those attending private, non-sectarian schools. The Legislature last summer expanded the program to include religious schools, but a legal challenge is pending.

Dole read his speech with the aid of a TelePrompTer, another sign that he and his campaign were intent upon focusing on his message and avoiding any miscues. Dole had been been using the device earlier in the campaign, but then abandoned it.

But amid these efforts at improving Dole’s performance on the campaign trail, a sign of the growing anxiety within the Republican Party over his campaign surfaced as other GOP leaders announced that they will stage a conference Tuesday aimed at persuading voters that the economy is growing too slowly under Clinton’s leadership.

Though Dole representatives are expected to play major roles at the Washington gathering, the idea came from four men outside the Dole campaign--former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp; House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.); Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.); and Sen. Connie Mack(R-Fla.).

In fleshing out Dole’s scholarship proposal, his aides said the $2.5-billion federal contribution for the grants would come from the Department of Education’s existing $33-billion annual budget and thus would not add to the federal deficit. Part of the funding would come from the $370-million earmarked for the department’s Goals 2000 program, which Dole would kill.

Dole would allow states to decide whether such scholarships would apply to only public schools, or to private schools and sectarian schools as well.

But his aides said that in selecting states for the program, preference would be given to those allowing for use of the scholarships at all three types of schools.

The type of school-choice financing program offered by Dole long has been a favorite issue for conservatives, who see it as a way to tap into widespread parental concern about the quality of public education. Still, as California’s experience shows, winning support for such proposals is difficult.

In 1993, a California initiative backed by school-choice advocates would have provided $2,600 vouchers to parents of any school-age child in the state to use for private- or religious-school tuition. But the measure, Proposition 174, faced opposition from teachers unions and virtually all the state’s major elected officials, including Gov. Pete Wilson. It lost by a 2-to-1 ratio.

After his Milwaukee appearance, Dole flew to Detroit, where, in keeping with the campaign’s newfound adherence to its message, he participated in a town hall meeting with Michigan education activists.