Big city mayors talk on urban problems

The discussion centered on education issues like private school vouchers. When former Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode returned to his high school alma mater several years ago, he found an auditorium filled with 150 wandering, sleeping and gossiping kids. It wasn't a large study hall. It wasn't lunchtime. The school simply couldn't fill its classrooms with teachers, leaving the students without a class to attend. "There's something fundamentally wrong," Goode said yesterday in a forum devoted to urban education. Goode's experience framed "Should Big-City Mayors Support School Choice?", a discussion sponsored by the Fox Leadership Forum on Urban Education, which was held yesterday in the Fels Center of Government. Moderated by Goode, Political Science Professor John DiIulio, Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial and former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith together tackled the issues surrounding urban education and school choice, specifically addressing school vouchers and charter schools. Schundler defended the usefulness of both vouchers and charter schools in improving public school systems, explaining that both introduce the type of economic competition in schools that is necessary to force them to improve. "Money means power," he said to the more than 40 students assembled in the Fels Center. "The money follows the child with vouchers." But according to Goode, vouchers can only bring bad news to public school districts. "Vouchers are simply bad public policy," Goode explained. "Vouchers are political gimmicks that distract from the real business of creating quality education," he continued, noting that they often divide communities. And Morial added that introducing vouchers into school systems can create a "train wreck" of parents eager to place their children in private schools. The quartet also debated other reforms public schools have recently started to implement in an attempt to increase poor student performance. Morial noted that regardless of the use of vouchers or charter school development, under-performing schools need quality facilities, smaller class size and more teachers. "In my city, the prisons look better than the schools," he said. "The schools don't look like the Third World. They look like the Third World used to look." After the panel spent almost two hours analyzing these issues, the audience -- comprised largely of College and Fels Center students -- was given a chance to ask questions of the politicians. Josh Dickstein, a Fels student and graduate of a Philadelphia area public school, said he was pleased with the overall event. "I loved it," he said. "I want to be mayor." And College junior Lauren Sypek echoed his sentiments. "It was amazing to have that many leaders in one place."

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