Bush and Paige: More than "just being there" in Milwaukee

EducationNews.org
Bush and Paige: More than "just being there" in Milwaukee
By Gregory Fossedal
May 15, 2002

This month's visit by President Bush and his Education Secretary to Milwaukee, where they toured the nation's premier school choice program, has been dismissed by critics -- and even some friends -- as an empty public relations gesture. It comes, after all, about a year after the president declined to lobby strongly for school vouchers in 2001. "When it counted," as one school choice advocate complains, "Bush left school choice behind."
Even if belated publicity is all the trip was about, though, it has merit. Another word for "publicity," in the context of politics, is "public education." As House Majority Leader Richard Armey noted with cutting irony in his 2000 State of Education response, former Education Secretary Riley never once made such a fact-finding trip. Indeed, in dozens of attacks on "vouchers," Riley almost never mentioned the one actual voucher program in operation throughout his tenure.
If Armey is right, though, that silence about Milwaukee is an imperative for the enemies of choice, then the administration's voucher visitation has meaning, and will have an impact. "Ninety percent of any job," as Woody Allen said, "is just showing up." The president has helped school choic efforts around the country just by showing up in Milwaukee.
In fact, however, as the president's and secretary's comments at the event suggest, the landing in Milwaukee means more. This summer, Rod Paige announced, he and the department will promulgate regulations on public-school choice and accompanying services. While these efforts are part of the program already enacted in 2001, aides close to Paige say the secretary will use his discretion to make sure those rules do not retard choice, but promote it. The same applies to a program designed to help capitalize charters schools, which have stalled in some states under a morass of red tape.
The secretary will also host a high-profile event on choice this summer at the department. The summit, in June, will help states, educators, and regulators answer their how-to-do-it questions. But it will do this in a spirit of celebrating the opportunities choice provides. Children in failing schools, Paige argues, "have waited long enough." He will be using his bully pulpit and educator's platform to get choice moving, because "we can't get hung up on the process."
Paige, aides say, has also been encouraging the president to lend his bully pulpit to helping promote legislative initiatives to extend school choice, like Colorado Rep. Bob Schaffer's tuition tax credit bill.
Several weeks ago, Tocqueville Institution president Ken Brown met with Paige. The meeting coincided with meetings between Secretary Paige and others interested in school choice, including corporate restructuring and investment magnate Ted Forstmann Sr. While it wouldn't be proper to disclose the detailed substance of the meeting, Brown came away encouraged by Paige's obvious passion, commitment, and interest on the school choice issue. "He kept asking how I think we can get choice going, why the issue has been losing so often over the years, saying we've got to turn it around." In fact, Paige appears friendly to the efforts of some members of Congress to revive the school choice issue in the form of a tuition tax credit or in expanded use of vouchers for children in special education or in failing schools.
It would be quite understandable if Secretary Paige stood on his laurels, having passed one of the more significant education reforms in several decades. Brown, however, said he came away thinking that is not Paige's intention. "I think he wants to be the Education Secretary who implements some meaningful reforms," Brown said. "And I think specifically he intends to get something done on school choice over and above the little bit of action they had last year."
When Paige was named by Bush a little over a year ago, his appointment was greeted with skepticism and apathy by many choice advocates. They felt, partly because of his career as part of what William Bennett used to call the "education blob," that former school administrator Paige would be a drag on Bush on the issue of school choice, which to many advocates is the only education reform worth fighting over.
In fact, on the basis of what he's done, planned, and gotten the president to do, though, Paige is hardly a voucher wet blanket. He's actually the spur. The administration has a zealot on school choice, but it isn't the president. It's his Education Secretary.

*EducationNews.org*
Bush and Paige: More than "just being there" in Milwaukee
By Gregory Fossedal
May 15, 2002
This month's visit by President Bush and his Education Secretary to Milwaukee, where they toured the nation's premier school choice program, has been dismissed by critics -- and even some friends -- as an empty public relations gesture. It comes, after all, about a year after the president declined to lobby strongly for school vouchers in 2001. "When it counted," as one school choice advocate complains, "Bush left school choice behind." Even if belated publicity is all the trip was about, though, it has merit. Another word for "publicity," in the context of politics, is "public education." As House Majority Leader Richard Armey noted with cutting irony in his 2000 State of Education response, former Education Secretary Riley never once made such a fact-finding trip. Indeed, in dozens of attacks on "vouchers," Riley almost never mentioned the one actual voucher program in operation throughout his tenure. If Armey is right, though, that silence about Milwaukee is an imperative for the enemies of choice, then the administration's voucher visitation has meaning, and will have an impact. "Ninety percent of any job," as Woody Allen said, "is just showing up." The president has helped school choic efforts around the country just by showing up in Milwaukee. In fact, however, as the president's and secretary's comments at the event suggest, the landing in Milwaukee means more. This summer, Rod Paige announced, he and the department will promulgate regulations on public-school choice and accompanying services. While these efforts are part of the program already enacted in 2001, aides close to Paige say the secretary will use his discretion to make sure those rules do not retard choice, but promote it. The same applies to a program designed to help capitalize charters schools, which have stalled in some states under a morass of red tape. The secretary will also host a high-profile event on choice this summer at the department. The summit, in June, will help states, educators, and regulators answer their how-to-do-it questions. But it will do this in a spirit of celebrating the opportunities choice provides. Children in failing schools, Paige argues, "have waited long enough." He will be using his bully pulpit and educator's platform to get choice moving, because "we can't get hung up on the process." Paige, aides say, has also been encouraging the president to lend his bully pulpit to helping promote legislative initiatives to extend school choice, like Colorado Rep. Bob Schaffer's tuition tax credit bill. Several weeks ago, Tocqueville Institution president Ken Brown met with Paige. The meeting coincided with meetings between Secretary Paige and others interested in school choice, including corporate restructuring and investment magnate Ted Forstmann Sr. While it wouldn't be proper to disclose the detailed substance of the meeting, Brown came away encouraged by Paige's obvious passion, commitment, and interest on the school choice issue. "He kept asking how I think we can get choice going, why the issue has been losing so often over the years, saying we've got to turn it around." In fact, Paige appears friendly to the efforts of some members of Congress to revive the school choice issue in the form of a tuition tax credit or in expanded use of vouchers for children in special education or in failing schools. It would be quite understandable if Secretary Paige stood on his laurels, having passed one of the more significant education reforms in several decades. Brown, however, said he came away thinking that is not Paige's intention. "I think he wants to be the Education Secretary who implements some meaningful reforms," Brown said. "And I think specifically he intends to get something done on school choice over and above the little bit of action they had last year." When Paige was named by Bush a little over a year ago, his appointment was greeted with skepticism and apathy by many choice advocates. They felt, partly because of his career as part of what William Bennett used to call the "education blob," that former school administrator Paige would be a drag on Bush on the issue of school choice, which to many advocates is the only education reform worth fighting over. In fact, on the basis of what he's done, planned, and gotten the president to do, though, Paige is hardly a voucher wet blanket. He's actually the spur. The administration has a zealot on school choice, but it isn't the president. It's his Education Secretary.