A few days before the California voucher initiative went down to defeat by a seven-to-three margin, columnist David Broder issued a "pre-mortem" blast at conservatives for not supporting the measure ("Shameful Silence On School Vouchers," Washington Post, October 27, 1993). Broder called vouchers a "perfect issue" for conservatives, one that appealed to the "movement's best and brightest thinkers." He expressed disgust at the lack of support--and especially financial support--from California conservatives. But perhaps the problem is with Broder's notion about the constituency for vouchers rather than with California conservatives.
In fact, good conservatives would have many questions about supporting vouchers, and some of the questions California conservatives asked undoubtedly played a big part in sinking the voucher initiative there.
--Would the voucher initiative end up costing taxpayers more money? The initiative was billed as a scheme that would save money at the same time as it improved California schools. But conservatives had a hard time believing that the state could give $2,600 to the students already in private schools and maintain a decent level of support for public schools. Did this mean public schools would be sacrificed? And would vouchers lead to an unacceptable choice down the road? Either raise taxes or accelerate the decline of California schools--and the loss of business and jobs to states with decent education systems?
-- Would vouchers further the splintering of communities? Conservatives believe that communities are very important and are eager to preserve them. That is one reason they opposed busing in the '60s and '70s. Vouchers, too, would tend to break up neighborhoods and communities by moving youngsters out of their local schools into many different schools in different localities.
--Would vouchers encourage extremist educational ideas?Conservatives often fight against what they see as far-out ideas in the public schools--the current battle against outcomes-based education is a good example. So they had serious reservations about a proposal that would have given anybody who could attract 25 kids the right to start a school with taxpayers' money. Pro-voucher campaigners pooh-poohed the possibility of witch schools or Koresh schools, but as people who read the legislation knew, there was nothing in it to stop virtually any group from starting a school in which virtually anything was taught.
-- Would vouchers really lead to educational excellence?Conservatives support rigorous academic content, and they have been critical of the low standards in public schools. But they hesitated to abandon a public school system with low standards for a private school system that, under the voucher initiative, would not have been required to have any.
-- Would vouchers lead to government regulation of private schools? Conservatives are happy that private schools are largely unregulated, and many send their kids to these schools. While they were tempted by the idea of a $2,600 voucher, they also knew that taking government money inevitably leads to government controls. The California voucher proposition was written with these fears in mind. By requiring a three-quarters majority to pass any legislation that would impose additional regulation on private schools, the voucher initiative tried to build a wall that was almost impossible to breach. However, conservatives knew that you can never be sure some federal judge won't hand down a ruling that will suddenly open private schools to the same kind of regulation that, in their view, has ruined the public schools.
In recent years, the major contribution of conservative thinkers has been to point out the hubris of the liberals. Liberals were convinced that their well-intentioned social programs would yield exactly the results they envisioned. Instead, practically every program had unintended results that were devastating. Among them, according to conservatives, were big increases in welfare dependency, promiscuity and crime. In the conservative view, any program is likely to have unintended consequences, and new programs must first be tried on a small scale. So conservatives looking at the California voucher initiative were not about to be guilty of the same hubris as the liberals. They were not about to enshrine a voucher system in the state constitution--and make it nearly unchangeable--without knowledge of the unanticipated consequences.
Voucher supporters charge that they lost the referendum because of the enormous amounts of money spent by voucher opponents, including the teacher unions. But "Why School Choice Lost," an article by John J. Miller that appeared in the Wall Street Journal the day after the election may be a lot closer to the truth. According to Miller, "School choice failed in California because Republican voters didn't want it."