Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 7, 1993 TAG: 9309090302
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The effort by some, that is, to make a campaign issue out of George Allen's and Mike Farris' attendance at a recent fund-raiser for an all-white private school in Amelia County.
To be sure, it looked like inept advance work on the part of the campaign staffs for Allen, the Republican nominee for governor, and Farris, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor.
But both candidates said they weren't aware that the fund-raiser was to benefit the all-white Amelia Academy. The tickets to the event didn't identify the benefactor - just said 14th Annual Amelia Beef Festival. Allen and Farris said they attended only because it looked like a good opportunity to shake hands and schmooze with voters; both stressed that they don't cotton to institutions that discriminate. There's little reason to doubt their word.
The incident might not be noteworthy - except it ought to be an amber light for candidates who indiscriminately advocate "school choice.''
A number of all-white private schools came into being nearly four decades ago, to avoid public-school desegregation ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court. In many communities, particularly rural counties in the South, these all-white facilities are the only private schools.
Proponents of school choice, of course, aren't likely to argue in favor of a return to segregation.
They push the appealing idea of "choice" - empowering parents to choose among public and private schools for their children, and giving them financial help through government vouchers or tax breaks - on the theory that competitive forces would soon weed out bad schools and strengthen good ones.
Indeed, parents ought to have more tax-subsidized options - within the public school system.
In some areas, including the Roanoke Valley, school choice is available now, to a degree. Magnet schools, which offer specialized curriculums, are popular, and many students have benefited from being able to cross city-county boundaries to attend public schools in jurisdictions where they do not live.
One danger in putting private schools on the government-subsidized choice menu is that in areas such as Amelia, where all-white academies exist, the government might unwittingly encourage school segregation.
(It also could put government in the business of supporting parochial schools, in violation of church-state separation.)
Next year, Virginia will host a national conference at the College of William and Mary commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision, one of the most significant victories in America's long civil-rights struggle.
As Farris said of his attendance at the fund-raiser for the all-white Amelia Academy, "sometimes you walk in blind" - not aware of what you're getting into.
As would-be state office-holders, Farris and Allen need to be aware that school choice can mean reversion to de facto state-sponsored segregation. In honing their school-choice positions, they should not "walk in blind" to that unacceptable outcome.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB