Black, Jewish activists lobby for school voucher initiatives

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 (JTA) — Taking aim at the problem of failing inner-city schools, a handful of Jewish and African American activists have formed a coalition to help build momentum for school voucher initiatives. Joining together on Capitol Hill last week, representatives from the two communities argued that taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers for use at private and parochial schools are the best bet for improving educational opportunities for low-income students. “Once again, blacks and Jews are uniting in a common cause to secure hope and opportunity for all our children through excellent education,” said Nathan Diament, director of the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs. The cooperative effort marks a broadening of Jewish voucher advocates’ approach to the issue, which in the past has been dominated by the argument that vouchers — also known as “school choice” — are needed to provide better access to a quality Jewish education and to fight the Jewish continuity crisis. Rabbi Bunny Freedman, representing the National Society For Hebrew Day Schools, said the cooperation between blacks and Jews represents a “coming of age for this issue,” noting that in the past, Jewish voucher advocates have been “accused of being interested in advancing only the Hebrew day school system.” Orthodox Jews who have been working to promote vouchers “now can hold their heads up proud and say we are not only working for our own children,” Freedman said. “We are ready, willing and able to join hands with our black comrades in the inner cities to help improve their schools.” School vouchers remain one of the most controversial and divisive issues facing the Jewish community. The Orthodox and politically conservative Jews favor the idea, while most in the organized Jewish community remain unflappably opposed. The opponents reject the idea of handing out taxpayer money for use at religious schools, calling it an affront to the constitutional separation of church and state. Standing alongside Jewish voucher advocates at a news conference following a Senate hearing last week on vouchers, representatives from the black community welcomed Jewish support for the effort to increase educational opportunities for disadvantaged black students. Howard Fuller, a professor of education at Marquette University and former superintendent of Milwaukee’s public schools, stressed, however, that vouchers will not constitute a “panacea” for the black community. “I think that it is one instrument that ought to be there to be used by parents, along with a variety of other efforts to reform our existing educational system,” he said. Fuller was one of several voucher advocates from the black community who spoke at a hearing of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee convened by Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), a leading advocate in Congress for school choice. In an effort to make a practical case for vouchers and to bring a human face to the campaign, parents, education experts and public officials were brought in to testify in support of voucher programs already in use in Cleveland and Milwaukee “I think there is growing momentum” for vouchers, Coats said. “The role and the voice of parents is going to drown out the role and voice of the education lobbyists who are vested in trying to hang onto the status quo.” The hearing was intended to give a boost to congressional efforts to pass two separate voucher initiatives. One would provide up to $3,200 to approximately 2,000 low-income families living in the District of Columbia, and the other would create a $50 million five-year pilot program offering vouchers to low-income parents whose children attend an “unsafe school.” There is some evidence, meanwhile, that support for voucher initiatives is increasing in both the black and Jewish communities. A poll conducted by the Joint Center for Political Studies in Washington found that about 57 percent of blacks now support the voucher concept — an increase of almost 10 percentage points in 18 months. At the same time, the Jewish Policy Center, a think tank affiliated with the Republican-aligned National Jewish Coalition, has launched a public campaign to build support for vouchers and reverse the Jewish community’s long-standing opposition to the idea. This group of politically conservative Jews has been advocating school choice as a means of leveling the education playing field and bolstering both Jewish education and Jewish identity. In mainstream segments of the two communities, however, opposition to vouchers remains as steadfast as ever. While the Jewish Council for Public Affairs continues a year-long effort to reassess the organized Jewish community’s position on the issue, most Jewish groups continue to oppose vouchers on both constitutional and policy grounds. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, meanwhile, voted at its annual convention last month to oppose voucher plans. “The fact is, there is a much broader, much more representative black-Jewish alliance in opposition to vouchers than any new alliance in support of vouchers, and with good reason,” said Michael Lieberman, Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League. Marshall Breger, a professor of law at Catholic University and vice-chairman of the Jewish Policy Center, acknowledged that the new coalition “consists of a minority of Jews and a minority of blacks.” But he stressed that such a coalition has the potential to make important strides in addressing the education problems facing both communities. Breger also believes there may be vital opportunities for “human discovery” in a “joining together of people who are not in the official dialogue business.” “Too often black-Jewish relations are handshakes at dinners,” he said. “This is a real concern of real people and I think it can provide an opportunity, maybe the first opportunity, for Orthodox Jews to understand the problems of inner-city blacks.”