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VOUCHER KING: VICTOR OR VILLAIN?
A Q&A with school choice champion David Brennan
David Brennan, millionaire businessman and private citizen, is one of
the most powerful behind-the-scenes players in Ohio education. Some call
him a villain. Others call him a hero. Many agree that without him, the
Cleveland voucher experiment that led to the U.S. Supreme Court declaring
the program constitutional would not have happened. The program gives tax
vouchers to several thousand poor children in failing public schools to
help pay their tuition at private or parochial schools in Cleveland. Now,
Brennan's White Hat Management Co. is poised to become a national chain of
for-profit "choice" schools. In April, an Ohio court dismissed a lawsuit
trying to stop him and challenging the state's 6-year-old law allowing
public charter schools. Here are excerpts from a recent interview with the
Enquirer's editorial board.
Q. How did you become such an advocate of education vouchers and
charter schools?
A. It started with learning centers in my companies. We bought
manufacturing companies in the 1970s and '80s and discovered when
increased automation of our factories began, many employees could not
operate the computer-based control systems. The average reading and math
skill of employees at our Spartanburg, S.C. plant in 1975 was fifth grade.
We found the same situation in many parts of the country. We discovered
that if we didn't educate them, we'd have to replace them. But we couldn't
easily replace them because a huge percentage of people applying for our
factory jobs also were under-educated. So we got into the education
business.
The traditional classroom didn't work. We finally found a computer-based
program that taught language arts and math. It worked for our employees
and their families. Contrary to common wisdom, we discovered that the
further you go down the academic achievement continuum, the more effective
the computer is as teacher. We learned this in our factories and now in
our schools. We've had great success.
Q. If this works so well to educate certain people, why don't public
schools do it?
A. The public schools wouldn't listen to what I had to offer. I realized
the problem is a system-delivery problem . If the structure is unworkable,
it will never respond to innovation sufficiently to create the
breakthroughs that are needed in individual kids. Education is an
individual matter. To insist that we can teach children at a single level
and get a single result is pure asininity. Doing the same thing over and
over again expecting a different result is insanity. Those two conditions
exist in government schools. We do things differently (in our schools). We
treat children individually at every level. That's what's necessary. A big
system can't do that. That's how I decided school choice was necessary.
Q. What do you say when people insist schools can't or shouldn't be run
like competitive businesses?
A. Imagine there was a law that required everyone to buy a Buick every
three years. And if you didn't want to buy a Buick, you still had to pay a
Buick tax. You could buy a Plymouth or a Chevrolet if you wanted, but you
still must pay the Buick tax.
What do you think would happen to the quality and costs of Buicks? The
cost would keep going up and the quality would go down. That's what has
happened to public education.
Education is a business. Not accepting that is one of the big failures of
government education. Consequently, it lacks the innovation that
businesses do everyday to survive.
Q. Opponents say you're using tax money to make a profit with schools.
They're asking Ohio courts to stop your company (and Ohio's charter law)
on constitutional grounds. What do you say?
A. An Ohio trial judge recently dismissed those charges. The issue has
been raised in 12 other states. The "for-profit argument" is irrelevant.
Even the U.S. Supreme Court said as much. (in Zelman voucher ruling). We
need ask only (of choice providers) "is the service being delivered
adequately and are they living with the state regulations." It's so very
difficult to create change in education, so reform had better be done in a
way that can sustain itself. Without profits, choice schools cannot
sustain themselves. And expecting to have continued private support to
maintain private choice is unrealistic. Eventually it has to be a
for-profit activity to create the capital to keep building and maintaining
these schools.
(Budgetary) discipline is needed for any on-going business enterprise to
succeed. Everybody seems to think you can pass laws to make public
education efficient. Why would that work when it has never worked any
place else? Why is it, for the past 50 years, that veterans won't go to
veterans hospitals? They go to private hospitals. Fair or not, when
government dispenses a service, it's almost always unable to do so in a
consistently effective manner.
Q. Do you close schools that are not profitable?
A. Of our 29 schools, probably two-thirds aren't profitable. Some are too
new. But our whole system is profitable. As long as we can absorb costs
and be reasonably profitable, we'll continue. So far, closing hasn't been
necessary.
Q. So why don't we have more school choice in the U.S.?
A. Inertia and powerful special interests like unions. They fund the
lawsuits (against choice options). We've never had a lobby as powerful as
the teachers' union. Other unions have division in their ranks, but
teachers unions speak with only one voice on this issue. It's an industry
with more than $400 billion a year in revenue, with dues of more than $2
billion a year and they focus everything to maintain their monopoly. In
the face of that, it's amazing what choice advocates have accomplished in
a few years.
Q. What about the argument that vouchers and charter schools drain
money from the public schools?
A. It's a spurious argument. They're unhappy because children don't like
their schools and when they leave revenue goes with them. Of course, only
two-thirds of the money goes with the student; schools keep the rest. Let
me give you an analogy. Say you own an apartment building and Dave wants
to move out. He moves, but you (the landlord) insist he must keep paying
you at least a third of your original rent. Nobody would do that. Charter
schools don't take money from the public schools. We receive students who
don't want to be in the public schools and the state funds that choice.
The school never owned the money in the first place. If students went to
another public school, would they make that argument? Of course not.
They're simply defending the monopoly.
Q. Compare the costs of standard public schools and your charter
schools.
A. Ohio's public city schools spend $9,000 to $10,000 per student. We
spend $5,000 to $6,000. Breaking that down, I'd guess public districts
probably spend $7,000 to $7,500 per grade-school kid and $15,000 per high
school kid. We spend $6,000 on both, but we do the high schools so
differently. Our Life Skills Center is a get-a-diploma high school. We
don't have band, athletics, clubs. It's school and it's work because the
population that comes to us, that's what they want from us. We get
virtually no requests for the other activities. When we do, we encourage
them to form their own ad-hoc groups.
Q. What would America look like without the public schools?
A. I think we should have public schools. The public wants them and
two-thirds of people are happy with them. Our students come from the
one-third that's not. If people are satisfied, that's great. But don't
deny those who want or need something different.
Q. You started with several voucher schools in Cleveland and now your
White Hat Management is poised to become a nationwide for-profit school
chain. What are your expansion plans?
A. As other states expand choice options, we're going to be there. We're
now one of nine for-profit education companies. There's another 20
not-for-profits that have more than one school. The need is incredible.
The market is huge. If there was not political opposition, there would be
20 times the charter schools there are now, from a demand viewpoint.
Nationally, there are now are more than 2,400 charter schools and
two-thirds of them have waiting lists. There is a significant demand by
parents for an alternative to the local public school system. Educational
entrepreneurs like me are ready to meet that demand.
Q. Can a voucher system completely solve the problem of urban
education?
A. It's the only thing I now see that has the promise of doing it. A new
report about "saving our cities" published by the Buckeye Institute (an
Ohio think tank) says education problems chase families out of cities. The
way to bring them back is to give them education choice and control.
I believe that. We're completing a report on the Cleveland voucher
program. Of the 5,000 families in it, parents are saying if they did not
have the school voucher, we would not stay in Cleveland. There's also an
incredible story in Milwaukee. This is the 14th year for their voucher
program. Some 10,000 kids are in it. About 100,000 are in public schools
and another 10,000 are in charter schools. That's 20 percent of their
population that's now in choice schools. In the four years since the
Milwaukee plan was upheld by the state Supreme Court, the voucher schools
have increased by one-third and the population has doubled. When the
demand is permitted to operate, the supply will grow to fill the demand.
If we give choices and education control to people who like city life, I
guarantee we'll have middle-class families going back to cities. It's what
you see all over Europe.
Q. Both enemies and friends say you're the pivotal power and money
behind making vouchers happen in Ohio. , and ultimately at the U.S.
Supreme Court. Some accuse you of "buying" education policy. Describe your
role from your viewpoint.
A. I learned from "the other guys" (how to influence policy). You know
that until the late 1970s, local school boards controlled public systems
reasonably well. The collective bargaining change under Ohio Gov. Dick
Celeste in '83 gave power to unions to bargain and took the balance out of
whack. School boards lost their ability to bargain effectively. That
happened because in the '60s and '70s, the unions figured out they
couldn't get any further at the bargaining table, so they said let's get
some legislators who will pass laws that will get us things we can't get
at the bargaining table.
In shorthand, that's what happened. There was no one able to oppose their
viewpoint, no one putting up either money or candidates who felt
differently. This wasn't unique to Ohio. Around the country, legislators
became dominated by public education monopoly viewpoints because those
people put money behind elections of people who felt that was a good idea.
What was lacking was the funding for other viewpoints.
There are many people who feel like I do, in Ohio and around the country.
I was the most visible because I don't mind public debates. Many people
who favored school choice shied away from public identification with it.
Some feared their businesses might suffer because of retribution from
opponents. That happened. In Washington state, voucher opponents did an
advertising boycott campaign that destroyed a business because the owners
supported choice. So much of the support for vouchers and choice is quiet
support, but it's there.
As for campaign contributions to Ohio Republicans in the choice fight: We
have 132 legislators and on my best day I may have supported 20. But it
takes a lot more than that to get the kinds of laws passed that we need to
pass in education. More important is stopping the legislature's knee-jerk
reactions that if public education wants this or that, just automatically
give it to them. This was a rule in Ohio for a generation.
Yes, I've been deeply involved in the choice push. I recognize it's a
political problem. I recognize that the way you solve a political problem
is do what they did (education unions). Find people who feel the way you
do about the solutions and help them get elected. Then when they're
attacked, provide funds to help them withstand the attack. Prior to that
kind of activity the past 10 or 15 years, no one had the ability to stand
up against the opposition that had all the money they wanted. To that
extent, I've been involved.
Q. Some people claim school vouchers will skim the best and brightest
students from public schools and leave behind the most disadvantaged with
the least parental support. Schools will then have less money to deal with
them. How do you answer that?
A. Thomas Jefferson said when you're concerned about the wisdom of the
citizenry to make effective choices, do not deny the choice. Educate the
citizenry on how to make a better choice. Our society is not to deny
choice but to inform, to create better choice.
Secondly, the value of the last seven years of vouchers, the last five
years of charter schools is to put the complete lie to that complaint.
It's the very people that they're concerned will abandon their children in
the inner city who are exercising choice. The very population to which
they direct that comment is making these choices.
An Akron union president said to me recently that "if parents would send
their kids to school every day ready to learn and well disciplined, we
could teach every one of them." I said "good for you." So what about the
rest of them? We're about the rest of them. You don't want those students?
Send them to us. That's why we exist. .
Q. The Cleveland voucher Supreme Court decision is a landmark case.
Explain how you think Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris will change American
education.
A. Parents are the first line of direction for the education of their
children. The key is a 1925 Oregon case that argued compulsory education
could be satisfied only in a government school. But the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled otherwise. In a 9-0 decision, the court emphatically said that
children are not wards of the state. A parent is the primary educator of
children and should control that education. The only thing the court
didn't have before it was "can the government pay to support that choice?"
The 2002 Zelman ruling says if the plan is impartial to a broad group of
citizens and government does not influence in any way where the child goes
or how the choice is made, you have a program that is constitutional.
If you put these two cases together and add a third line of reasoning, you
see how far we've come for school choice. The Supreme Court has for many
years been faced with the problem of the government trying to regulate
religious activity. Under the First Amendment, the freedom to exercise
religion is just as powerful as our speech and press freedoms. The court
repeatedly has ruled that government cannot interfere with the operation
of religious schools. The major case was an National Labor Relations Board
case. Does the NLRB have jurisdiction over the organizing efforts in
religious schools? And the court said 9-0 "absolutely not." That's
unreasonable interference with the practice of religion.
Put those three legs together, and now wherever vouchers will be
universally established for a segment of our population, I predict that at
least half the schools will be religious and therefore the legislature
that has the absolute power to control public education, including charter
schools, would have no right to interfere with religious schools. You
would have a classic stand-off between parents and the government in which
education would be funded as a common need, but the government cannot
interfere with how it's delivered. To me, that's the value of Zelman and
the future of education in this country.
(The story of how Ohio's voucher program brought a U.S. Supreme Court
decision that opened American education to parent choice is told in a new
book "Victory for Kids" by David Brennan with Malcolm Baroway, New
Millennium Press. It also details Brennan's role in a changing education
marketplace.)
WHAT IS IT?
Vouchers: Receipt good for tax money credit from the state to help
pay tuition. So far, Cleveland is the only Ohio city with tax-supported
vouchers.
Charter schools: Public schools independent from local public
schools. Free, sometimes privately owned; serving 30,000 predominantly
poor children in Ohio, including Cincinnati. Made possible by a 1997 law.
Indiana allows charter schools but Kentucky does not.
THE BRENNAN FILE
• Akron businessman, entrepreneur, CEO of manufacturing companies,
accountant, lawyer
• Founder, CEO of White Hat Management.an education services firm,
founded in 1998.
• Former trustee of his alma maters, Ohio State University and Case
Western Reserve School of Law.
• Chairman of Gov. Voinovich's Commission on Educational Choice, the
impetus for the Cleveland voucher program established in 1996.
• Founded and/or operates about a fifth of Ohio's 131 charter schools,
including several in Cincinnati. They include HOPE Academies, traditional
elementary schools (K-8); Life Skills Centers, alternative high schools
for students age 16-22; the OHDELA Academy to aid parents who educate
children at home.
• His trademark white cowboy hat symbolizes his commitment to lifting
the downtrodden. It stems from early days in restructuring bankrupt steel
mills.
HERO OR VILLAIN?
• 'The poorest children in Ohio are deeply indebted to one of Ohio's
wealthiest citizens. Because of David Brennan's relentless commitment to
school choice, there was a Supreme Court case that opened the door to
low-income families all over America.'
Mike Fox, former Ohio representative who championed the voucher
legislation in the General Assembly
---
• 'I thank God for Dave Brennan because he has the passion to stand up and
push something that he believes in; and those are the people who really
make the difference today in this nation.'
U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, former Ohio governor who led the voucher
effort
---
• 'I think you need to have a villain. Their villain, in this case, wears
a white hat.'
Ohio Rep. Jon A. Husted, speaking of Brennan's critics
---
• 'Brennan did more than get the reform ball rolling. He has stayed in the
battle to the end. People in power know most reformers run out of steam
and fade away. This reformer did not.'
David Zanotti of the Ohio Roundtable and the governor's task force on
school choice
---
• 'Brennan wants to buy public policy when it comes to education. It's
amazing the traction he gets for bad ideas.'
Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers union
---
• 'He has invested heavily and he is being rewarded more heavily. He can
smell a dollar farther away than any other person I've ever seen.'
William Phillis, Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School
Funding
originally printed in The Cincinnati Enquirer
copyright © 2003.
Cincinnati Enquirer.
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