LATINOS ARE PLAYING A KEY ROLE IN PROMOTING SCHOOL VOUCHER PROGRAMS:
LOOKING FOR A BETTER CHOICE
Hispanic Magazine - [12/24/2003]

"Colorado and Wisconsin are the lands of ski resorts and Oktoberfests, places with majority populations as white as the snowy slopes and beery foam. But when these two states stepped into the controversial debate over school vouchers, it was Hispanic community leaders and grassroots pressure that played critical roles.

“There’d be no discussion about the success in Colorado were it not for the Latino leaders,” says Steve Schuck, a Colorado Springs real estate developer who runs a private school-voucher program and lobbied aggressively for the state’s new taxpayer-funded system.

Driven by economic, political and cultural forces, Hispanics are emerging as one of the most reliably influential groups for building and maintaining policies in which vouchers'tax refunds for parents choosing to send their children to private rather than public schools'are involved.

“I do think there is considerable demand among Hispanics for educational choices, and frankly for anything that would improve education,” says Jay Greene, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Police Research, a pro-voucher South Florida think tank that studies programs across the country. “Every school choice program that exists is targeted in a way, and Hispanics are heavy participants and are heavily targeted.”

One of the most dramatic examples is Ohio’s program, where a long-term state-sponsored study found the proportion of Hispanic and multiracial students in voucher programs is nearly twice that of Hispanic and multiracial students in public schools'at the same time that blacks’ enrollment in such programs was relatively low.

State-run choice programs are among the most divisive issues in turn-of-the-century public policy, arousing the passions of nearly every powerful constituency with an interest in education and government spending. National and local teachers’ unions dominate the opposition, arguing that voucher programs divert desperately needed cash from state education budgets'budgets that these days often run on duct tape and twine, partly as a result of the sluggish economy.

But after years of frustration, voucher advocates are gaining traction. Free-market Republicans have formed fruitful partnerships with the low-income, high-minority communities most often stuck with the lowest performing schools. Their programs now operate from the Midwest to the Deep South.

Experts disagree on why Hispanics have become such notable players. The community’s disproportionately low income is often cited'they are more likely to be in underfunded schools and less likely to be able to afford private alternatives.

“That’s an awful assumption to make, but to some extent it’s true,” says Alvaro García-Vélez, who runs Milwaukee’s Notre Dame Middle School, an almost-entirely Hispanic middle school for girls. “One of the things we preach here is that poverty is not an excuse for apathy when it comes to your child’s education.”

Income alone, though, cannot explain the trend. Blacks are also saddled with the challenges of urban neighborhoods, but their role in developing and using voucher programs is more erratic.

The social and cultural undercurrents are difficult to measure, but the people at the voucher movement’s forefront point anecdotally to the roles of religion, politics and tradition.

For one, Hispanics are less monolithic voters than other ethnic minorities, far more diverse than the reliably Democratic votes in black precincts. For Republicans looking to spread their small-government philosophies into education and tamp down the teachers unions’ power, vouchers are an attractive way to reach out to Hispanics.

“The Hispanic community, since it embraces the principles of free enterprise and the Republican policies, were most prone to look at alternatives,” says Florida state Rep. Ralph Arza, a Republican lawmaker from the Miami suburb of Hialeah and an influential voice in the state’s education policy.

For nearly five years, students in Florida’s lowest-rated schools have been able to use vouchers to attend the private school of their choice'the policy was a cornerstone of Gov. Jeb Bush’s education package. Hispanics make up 20 percent of the Sunshine State’s school population, but 27 percent of the group taking Opportunity Scholarships.

Greene, the researcher, believes the close bonds between Hispanic communities and the Catholic Church have played a major role. When the tuition barrier is removed, he says, families come to religious schools in droves.

Other experts have cited other aspects of Hispanic culture, as well. Arza cites the prevalence of private schools in many American Hispanics’ native countries, for example. “The concept of a small school is dear to Hispanics,” says Arza, who is part of the Florida Legislature’s Cuban bloc. “We bring that from our countries with their smaller neighborhood schools where the kids share values like religion'that’s very important to Hispanics.”

Increasingly, Hispanics are not only voucher clients but also advocates and organizers for the legislation that creates the programs. Colorado is most cited example'two previous drives failed before leaders enlisted prominent Hispanics'and a nascent movement in New Jersey revolves in part around Hispanic grassroots groups.

Their role has become significant enough to warrant a new advocacy group, Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options.

“Hispanics are coming to learn the economic value of education and what that means to their children and children’s children’s future,” says Robert Aguirre, a

San Antonio businessman and chairman of Hispanic CREO’s board of directors. “So much of our history is centered around the value of work, but more and more we are learning the value of education as it pertains to the value of work.

“That is really beginning to drive Hispanics.”"

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