Vouchers Hit the Burbs

by Marie Gryphon

Marie Gryphon is a policy analyst with the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom. She is coauthor of "Our History of Educational Freedom: What It Should Mean For Families Today"

For years, school choice seemed stalled on a freeway at the edge of town. Urban voucher programs in Cleveland and Milwaukee were successful. But only the involvement of middle-class suburbs will trigger the market revolution that reformers seek, and the suburbs presented an unassailable front. Statewide ballot measures in favor of vouchers lost big in California and Michigan in 2000. Proposals to expand education tax credits in Minnesota and Arizona died, and Ohio's permanent "pilot" program remained strictly limited to the City of Cleveland.