This week, business executives Ted Forstmann and John Walton formally unveiled their Children's Scholarship Fund, offering privately funded vouchers for 40,000 low-income families who are willing to pony up an additional $500 for private school tuition. An incredible 1.2 million families with verified incomes low enough to qualify have applied to participate in a lottery for these 40,000 slots. Meanwhile, the Florida legislature enacted Governor Jeb Bush's proposal to create vouchers for use in private schools by low-income families in areas where public schools are graded as failing according to standardized tests. The other Bush brother, Governor George W. of Texas, indicated he is staking his political reputation on a voucher bill in his state. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani formally proposed public funds for private school vouchers in New York. And in Michigan, a ballot initiative authorizing vouchers was certified for a vote in 2000.

The response to the Forstmann/Walton initiative represented a thundering vote of no-confidence in the nation's public schools, especially in the inner cities. It shows, as does the renewed momentum for vouchers in various states, that there are limits to the patience of Americans about the glacial pace of reform in the public education system. These developments should serve as a wake-up call to those in the education establishment who have fought (with some success) public school choice, public charter schools, higher standards for students, an end to social promotion, accountability for teachers and administrators, and other measures to force public schools to improve their performance. The guardians of the educational status quo have won a few battles, but are in danger of losing the war, with America's great tradition of universal public education sacrificed in the bargain.

New Democrats should continue efforts on every front to make all public schools high-performance schools, with special emphasis on the citadels of failure and despair masquerading as educational facilities in many inner-city neighborhoods. But we have a specific idea to offer to New Democrats who are confronted with voucher proposals in state legislatures or city councils: offer an amendment that requires private schools receiving public funds to (1) accept accountability for results, and (2) agree not to "cherry-pick" students, but to educate the full range of children whose parents pay for vouchers through taxes. This would in effect turn private schools accepting vouchers into public Charter Schools.

The essence of public education is not government ownership of schools, but universal access and accountability to the public for results. It doesn't really matter whether public schools are run by the local school board, a group of parents, a teacher's union, a private educational enterprise, or the Little Sisters of the Poor. Indeed, many Charter Schools are run by private entities who negotiate a "charter" -- a performance contract -- that gives them public money in exchange for accepting the responsibility of educating the public- school population of kids.

An "accountability amendment" to a voucher proposal would make this crucial point about the nature of public schools clear: if you, the school operator, want public money, then you should agree to meet the same standards of access and performance we demand of schools operated by the city or county. To be sure, performance standards for schools should be raised almost everywhere (especially in those jurisdictions whose students most want to flee), but private schools taking public money should not be allowed to evade them.

This will make perfect sense to voters, and even to some current voucher proponents. After all, parents and taxpayers would not countenance a decision by the local school board to buy a computer system, order school books, or repair a school roof, without a contract that spells out what the recipient of public money is promising to do. But most voucher proposals do exactly that -- make a no-strings, no-expectations contract with private vendors--in purchasing the most precious educational material of all, the instruction of our children.

The simplest way to construct an "accountability amendment" is to use the accountability language from a strong charter school law -- say, Minnesota's. The essentials are non-discrimination in accepting applicants, and a written agreement with public authorities that outlines what standards they agree to meet, by which objective measurements.

Many voucher proponents who simply want to privatize K-12 education, and many private schools who would love a no-strings public subsidy, will object to an "accountability amendment." Fine. Let's divide the sheep and the goats on vouchers by separating those who are interested in using every available means to improve public education from those who want to abandon it altogether. This latter group might well become convinced to abandon the coalition supporting vouchers and join the coalition supporting efforts to make all public schools perform like the best public or private schools.

Those who fight vouchers while defending an indefensible status quo are leading with their chins, and they're getting clobbered. It's time for serious supporters of high-performance public schools to get into the ring and start counter-punching.