I think what is happening now is persons like myself are forcing African-Americans to have to at least begin debating the issue. Aside from the neatly kept homes, the church, with its congregation of about 11,000, seems responsible for just about every area of the neighborhood that isn't in a state of decay. You just cannot educate in chaos. Critics of Mr. Flake's pro-voucher stance often point to the fact that his church runs a school, and would, therefore, have something to gain from publicly financed tuition aid to parents. Instead, he sees his school as an example of the potential of a community's self-determination, and when he talks about vouchers to other clergymen, he urges them to start their own schools.
People respond to that.
Many also seem to be responding to the message he's preaching on school choice since he left Congress last November. Although he says he still occasionally gets disinvited by local groups upset with his stance on vouchers, he's spoken to dozens of black church and community organizations from Boston to Los Angeles since stepping down after 11 years in the U.S. House. When he speaks about vouchers, Mr. Flake eschews much of the arcane terminology of education policymakers in favor of blunt language. Rising in the Polls Polls suggest Mr. Flake's gospel is winning some converts. Those results came just weeks after a survey by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank that studies African-American issues, showed that black support for vouchers had increased to 57 percent, up from 46 percent the year before.