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Cpyright (c) 2002 by Ed Quillen. All rights reserved.
Late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly held that a school voucher plan did not violate the First Amendment, and was therefore constitutional.
The case came from Cleveland, Ohio, where parents could get a voucher for $2,500 per year per schoolchild, and use it at a private school.
On the surface, this is neutral as regards religion, but in practice, it wasn't. Schools typically spend $5,000 or more per year per student, and private schools set their tuition accordingly, so the only schools that could afford to participate in the Cleveland program were those that had other income beyond tuition -- that is, parochial schools.
Opponents thus argued that no matter how neutral the
Cleveland plan appeared, it was actually a way to use
public funds to support religious institutions, and so it
violated the constitutional provision that Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion.
Voucher opponents also come up with many other arguments, the main one being that the public schools will be damaged if some students and money go elsewhere.
But if we look at how things really work in public education, it's more likely that vouchers would improve the public schools.
For one thing, few private schools are likely to enjoy the facilities and resources available to public schools. So most parents would likely send their kids to the public school, voucher or no voucher.
But the presence of vouchers would improve the public school. As it is, public schools have to take everybody.
Now, consider how much you would enjoy being a public school administrator in a district with vouchers. Put yourself at the complaint desk, where the first in line is an angry mother:
My son's sophomore English teacher is trying to
poison his immortal soul by exposing him to the occult
witchcraft in 'Macbeth,' and I want you to change the
curriculum so that our children read only uplifting and
moral literature.
You could answer: We think it's important for
students to study real literature, not pabulum. So, here's
a voucher. Just go down the street until you find a school
you like.
Then you could listen to the next complaint:
My daughter's in honors English, and just got
assigned a book that has the N-word all over the place.
You should know that Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' is
just racist drivel, and it is unacceptable for it to remain
anywhere in this school, let alone as required reading.
What are you going to do about this?
Sir, we've heard that criticism of the greatest
American novel before, and we're not changing anything.
So, here's your voucher, and we wish you well.
Parents who complained about geology classes which made the earth more than 6,000 years old, about biology classes that explained evolutionary theory, about patriarchal history classes, about children pointing fingers at each other -- you get the idea. Just hand them a voucher and send them on their way, in the same way that a private business can tell an obnoxious customer to take his money and go somewhere else.
Under these circumstances, our public schools would be able to improve, since they could focus on education, rather than on pandering to the purists and to the sensitive. So it seems odd that people who say they believe in good public education are among the most fervent opponents of vouchers.
Opponents might argue, though, that sending children off to specialized schools would deprive them of a common experience, and further, they might grow up to be narrow-minded fanatics because they weren't exposed to anything else during their formative years.
As for the common experience,
the children of
wealthy parents seem to pretty well for themselves in this
country, and they're the ones most likely to attend private
schools now. If they don't suffer for the lack of whatever
public schools have to offer that other schools don't, why
would other children?
Further, even the religious academies fail to produce faithful zealots. Indeed, they often produce the opposite -- tolerant, humane skeptics.
The famous 18th-century French skeptic Voltaire was educated by the Jesuits, a Roman Catholic order established to promulgate the faith. America's own 18th-century skeptic, Thomas Jefferson, was educated at William and Mary College of Virginia, an institution then dedicated to training ministers for the Anglican pulpit.
Move to the 20th century, and there's the exuberant skepticism of H.L. Mencken -- product of a Lutheran education.
Given all that, the fears about vouchers seem baseless. By removing obnoxious parents from the clientele, vouchers would allow public schools to improve. And the kids who ended up in strict religious schools could still grow up to be like Voltaire, Jefferson or Mencken. So why all the worry about vouchers?
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