A First Report Card On Vouchers

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The Islamic School of Oasis, across town, also requires prayer: Zuhr, a short service, four days a week, and the longer Jumah service on Fridays. The posters here have an Islamic theme, like the MUSLIM CHILD'S ALPHABET, in which each letter has a Muslim reference: A is for Allah and Q is for Qu'ran. "We started as a religious school because the rights of Muslims were not being protected in the public schools," says principal Da'ud Abdul Malik. Before vouchers, about three-fourths of the student body was Muslim. Now, a majority is non-Muslim. But as at Metro Catholic, the religious requirements apply to all.

In a recent TIME/CNN poll, respondents opposed public vouchers for private and religious schools 54% to 34%. Cleveland's experience helps explain why people are wary, but also why vouchers have such a strong appeal. Most voucher parents aren't pro-voucher or anti-public school: they have a pragmatic desire for safe, effective schools. In some cases, vouchers have made all the difference. Cleveland parent Monique Malone used a voucher to send her son John to the Marotta Montessori school and watched him thrive in a classroom of children purposefully working with blocks, maps and other didactic tools. "The education has been phenomenal," she says. And many voucher parents say the biggest change in their children's new schools has been their sense of order. Melissa DeJesus once worked in a nonviolence program in the Cleveland public schools and saw how rowdy they can be. She now sends her daughter to a parochial school. "They're real strict," she says. "In a Catholic school, there's not a lot of ruckus."

And that may be the biggest lesson from Cleveland. If public schools want to maintain their position, they need to convince parents that they can do the job. "The real choice isn't between vouchers and the status quo," says Gutmann. "It's between vouchers and improving the public schools."

--With reporting by Ken Myers/Cleveland