David F. Salisbury, The Cato Institute
March 20, 2003School Vouchers and Students with Disabilities
National Council on Disability
April 15, 2003
Responding to the debate over whether to include vouchers in the upcoming reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (which the House of Representatives nixed yesterday), both the National Council on Disability and the Cato Institute have recently added their two cents, Salisbury's in a short briefing paper and NCD's in a longer policy report. Each is interesting, though of course they disagree. Salisbury believes strongly in school choice, while NCD, though claiming to open to the idea, worries that, without proper oversight, vouchers could do more harm than good. Their differences mirror the fundamental differences between those who favor and fear choice. Salisbury contends that market forces will hold private schools accountable; NCD wants all schools accepting vouchers to be subject to the same IDEA regulations as public schools. Salisbury describes those regulations as a "bureaucratic stranglehold" while NCD regards them as an essential safety net. And while Salisbury argues that special education often fails in public schools, NCD thinks it's doing pretty well, all things considered. Is either of them right? Salisbury's views may be a bit too libertarian - even a choice regimen needs government to ensure that parents get accurate and intelligible comparative information schools - but NCD is overfond of regulation and offers too rosy a view of public schools. A reasonable middle ground must be found, for as Salisbury argues, "Parents raising a child with a disability deserve the freedom to choose from all the options available." The matter, in any case, now heads to the U.S. Senate. The Cato briefing paper is available at http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-081es.html; the NCD policy paper, which also summarizes voucher research and interprets the Zelman decision's relevance to IDEA vouchers, can be found at http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/vouchers.html.
