Q&A with State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams

State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (D., Phila.) stopped by The Inquirer's Editorial Board on Thursday to talk about school vouchers and other issues.

Williams, who briefly ran for governor in 2010 and has hinted he might challenge Mayor Nutter in the Democratic primary this year, is championing a bill to provide about $9,000 per pupil, on average, to help pay tuition for low-income families seeking to transfer children from failing public schools to private, parochial, or charter schools.

It's not the first time Williams has joined Republicans to support school-choice proposals. He recalled how his backing of Gov. Tom Ridge's initiatives in the 1990s infuriated a fellow Democrat - his father, the late State Sen. Hardy Williams.

Excerpts are below. - Joelle Farrell
Question: The family's going to have a check in their hands?

Williams: The family has a check in their hands specifically for tuition - not to go buy a car or a refrigerator, but a check in their hand that they can use for education.

 Q: But you're really looking at the parochial and private schools picking up most of these kids.

Williams: I'm looking at what other people have done to allow children who are trapped in bad schools to escape. . . . Until human beings in the legislature deal with that, in the meantime we're sacrificing children that we already know could do better, parents who want to do better, to a school that simply because they don't have enough money they can't get out of.

We've returned to "separate but unequal" . . . and it affects . . . primarily poor children of color.

Q: [The bill contains] no limit to the number of students that could leave . . . a public school district?

Williams: Well, there's a limit, period, because not everybody is poor, so not everybody qualifies for the vouchers.

Q: The fear [is] that there is an effort to invest in options and take away an investment in what will remain, and hope that [bad schools] will eventually close. But while you're waiting for them to close, your kids could be, again, damaged educationally.

Williams: Well, the kids are already being damaged educationally. I think we have to concede that.

Q: I'm intrigued by how your own educational background might figure in your thinking.

Williams: C's were a failure in our household, and I was C and better - to the bad. . . . My mom was frustrated. . . . Somehow we got an interview with Westtown Quaker school. I did not qualify by any measure other than Quakers were looking for African American students . . . and I discovered I could be a pretty good student.

When it came to the legislature, when Tom Ridge introduced his first [voucher] bill . . . [My dad] called me. . . . "Have you lost my your mind? Why are you doing this? It's the 'third rail' of Democratic politics. You are a Democrat. You cannot go against the teachers union. You are absolutely wrong."

I said, "Look . . . I got the benefit of a scholarship. You saw what it did for me. How am I going to be hypocritical and do something else for another child?" He said a few more expletives and hung up.

Q: He cursed you out for supporting charter?

Williams: Oh, yeah, absolutely. By the time he left, though, he was OK with charters and opening up choice. He understood it.

Q: You running for mayor?

Williams: This week? [Laughter.]

Q: This year.

Williams: I haven't made a decision. I'm probably going to announce that probably next week.

Q: Which way are you leaning?

Williams: That would give too much information.

Q: Isn't it kind of late?

Williams: Don't you know who I am? Nothing is too late - what are you talking about? I ran [for governor] across Pennsylvania in 13 weeks.