Dole Proposes School-Choice Scholarship Program For K-12 Clinton Criticized For Opposition To Similar Education Proposals

In the latest election-year bidding on education, Bob Dole offered schoolchildren a “GI Bill” of their own Thursday $2.5 billion in federal scholarships to their choice of public, private and religious schools.

The Republican presidential candidate cast President Clinton as a coddler of the rich for his opposition to similar school-choice initiatives.

“The federal government should be giving fewer orders and offering more options,” Dole said in announcing his “opportunity scholarships” for some 4 million elementary and high school students.

He likened the scholarships to the military’s GI Bill, a program whose grants for education Dole took advantage of after World War II. “I want all of our children to have the same opportunities,” he said.

Speaking to an approving audience of students and parents in Milwaukee, where a similar state school-choice program is already in place, Dole blamed Clinton for last year’s failure of a plan to give District of Columbia students taxpayer help with private school tuitions.

“The president has said, in effect, ‘If you’re poor, stay in your place…you should have a choice if you have the money or if you have the power or the position or the prestige,” Dole said. “That’s not the way it ought to work in America and that’s why I’m on your side in this issue.”

He cast his scholarships as a matter of fairness, putting poor students on equal footing with those who can already afford private schools.

“This is something we can do right now to make the American dream a reality for everyone,” Dole said.

While the program is designed to cover expenses for schools with nominal tuition it wouldn’t begin to cover an expensive private school education.

Later Thursday, at an outdoor forum in Detroit, where Dole was also attending a fund-raising dinner, Dole said home-schooled students would also be eligible for scholarships. “We’re not downgrading public schools, but we are suggesting we need competition,” he told a crowd of about 400 on the lawn of Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village complex.

Dole’s proposal would give low- and middle-income students cash scholarships of at least $1,000 for elementary school, and $1,500 for high school. Last month, Clinton made students an offer of his own: a $1,500 tax credit for the first two years of college.