The choice plan that Governor Whitman eventually proposed was almost weirdly watered down, limiting parental choice to first and ninth graders in Jersey City. The plan hasn't even been introduced in the legislature. It now faces opposition form both voucher proponents who view it as weak and the teacher's union for whom any voucher plan is anathema. The governor's state of the state speech today should give some idea of how far onto the back burner the Whitman administration has shoved the choice.
Former Governor Thomas Kean, now president of Drew University, says the New Jersey union opposes a voucher experiment "because its leaders are scared to death it might not work." He notes that union has raised a large war chest to fight choice. Mr. Kean says that a large chunk of Jersey City's $271 million school budget comes from the state, and he agrees choice could ultimately save suburban taxpayers money. "But legislators are focused on the next election, and they don't see a political upside in giving Jersey City parents that freedom," he told us.
Jersey City's Mayor, Bret Schundler, touts a Bergen Record poll that shows 60% of state residents support vouchers. In Jersey City, 70% of voters and most of the city's Democratic legislators support vouchers. Mayor Schundler says it would be a tragedy if a Republican Governor and a legislature overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans can't join with urban Democrats to pass school choice.
"Legislators agree crime and urban decay can't ultimately be solved unless the schools improve," he says. "But they don't seems to want to let my city improve its own schools. Instead, they keep pouring state money into a failed system. It's fiscal madness."
And it my not be smart politics. All over the country, teachers's unions targeted supporters of choice for defeat in the last election -and failed. In Pennsylvania, not a single one of the more then 100 legislators who voted for vouchers was defeated , and the state's new Governor-elect, Thomas Ridge, says he wants tot be the first to pass statewide school choice legislation. "It's one of my main priorities," he told us. In New York, Governor George Pataki's education transition committee has recommended he back a voucher program.
Portugal hotelsGovernor Whitman's political advisors are assuring her that if she only keeps her pledge to cut state income taxes by 30% she can sustain her national reputation and possibly land a spot on the 1996 GOP presidential ticket. She's indeed made a good start with tax reduction and government downsizing. But it looks as if the bar of success for Republican governors has been raised since the November elections. By not pushing the legislature to reform schools, she risks being left behind by bolder GOP governors from Arizona all the way to Connecticut.