Vouchers: The Wrong Medicine For The Ills Of Public Education

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Vouchers: The Wrong Medicine For The Ills Of Public Education
By Richard V. Pierard

[Dr. Richard V. Pierard is professor of history at Indiana State University.]

One of the most distinctive elements of the Religious Right`s attack on public education is the demand that parents be provided with "vouchers" to cover the tuition costs of private schools so their children may obtain an "alternative" education to that provided by the "government" schools. This nostrum operates under such slogans as "choice," "fairness," and "competition," but in fact voucher plans are, as religious liberty expert Edd Doerr stated on National Public Radio`s All Things Considered, "pure snake oil."[i] Granted, public education suffers from numerous maladies and a host of reform-minded "physicians" are prescribing cures for them through their books and consulting services, but those who promote voucher plans are nothing more than educational quacks. In fact, the Religious Right can be expected to be content only if the public schools were rendered extinct, and private or "Christian" schools replaced them as the primary educational structure in our country.

What complicates the discussion is that "school choice" advocates populate other segments of American society as well. Conservatives and libertarians who adhere to other faiths besides evangelical Protestantism or whose religious commitment is minimal are also enthusiasts for this. For them the ideas of "deregulation" and "privatization" are not only applicable to the economic sphere but also to the realm of education. By far the best known of the works espousing this viewpoint is Politics, Markets, and America`s Schools, by John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe.[ii] These two scholars, whose book appears under the imprint of a respected Washington think tank, marshal an impressive body of quantitative data to demonstrate that competition in a market system of control will motivate schools to be more responsive to the needs of their current and potential clients. The American educational system, they believe, would be greatly improved (in the sense that student achievement would rise) if overbureaucratized, government-run schools were replaced by autonomous, market-driven ones. Public schools should be forced to compete with private schools for tax dollars by offering all parents publicly funded "scholarships," or tuition vouchers, which they could "spend" at any school they choose.

Such ideas had not gained much acceptance until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Then, the new right conservatives launched their war against the liberal reforms of the last half-century and promoted market solutions to public problems. They were joined in this struggle by a large number of Protestant evangelicals, who condemned the public schools as repositories of secular humanism. They found allies in the Department of Education, which shifted its emphasis away from public education and tilted toward private education and school choice. All the Republican secretaries of education more or less supported school choice, and Lamar Alexander, in particular, publicly and unreservedly championed the idea. Even a special agency within the department was created, the Center for Choice in Education, which freely distributed materials calling for public support of private schools. Roman Catholics quickly joined in the coalition to promote choice. In the states, grassroots organizers promoted the idea assiduously, and choice measures were placed on ballots or even enacted into law; for example, the notorious Milwaukee experiment promoted by Wisconsin legislator Annette "Polly" Williams. In 1992 President George Bush proposed the "G.I. Bill Opportunity Scholarships for Children," a voucher program that he said would encourage competition and produce a revolution in education. He also declared: "And look at it this way, we`re doing the Lord`s work for our nation`s future."[iii]

Regardless of the strong pressures for voucher programs coming from conservative Republicans and their evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic allies, the idea is a bad one.

First, it is the wrong solution to the ills of public education. As education professor Peter Cookson so well put it, vouchers are "an educational solution in search of a problem." The fundamental questions facing education are matters of purpose and resources. Markets may provide options, but they cannot define purpose. The market approach does not provide a definitive idea of what education should be–that is, what kind of schools will produce the sort of adults who will be productive citizens. Schools are attacked for many reasons–violence, teachers` unions, inadequate student achievement, lack of morality. However, the origins of these problems are seldom subjected to examination, such as, a faltering economy, ethnic competition and struggle, and postmodern social values. Would deregulating the school system really address these problems?

The reason why the "deregulation coalition" of political conservatives, libertarians, fundamentalist Christians, and opponents of the welfare state has been so successful is because of their sophisticated disinformation campaign against public institutions, social democracy, and ethnic and cultural diversity.[iv] Their aim is to replace the democratically based school system with one that is much more authoritarian and subject to the whims of the power interests in American society.

In fact, education scholars have demonstrated conclusively that the highly-touted Chubb and Moe study, which, in effect, called for a transformation from democratic control of education to a market system and whose recommendations were favored by the Bush administration, is seriously flawed. What the two researchers did was come with a set of preconceived policy notions and then look for empirical evidence to validate these. They intended to show that the political environment of democratic control (schools are responsible to elected boards and have bureaucracies to carry out policies developed by these boards) was the reason for the problems that public schools experienced. But by manipulating the data to justify market control as the solution, they ended up with "a polemic obfuscated by numbers" whose policy recommendations were not supported by the evidence presented.[v] In short, there is no empirical foundation for the contention that competition with nonpublic schools will somehow improve public schools.

Second, a voucher system will harm public education. In spite of the rhetoric with which we are bombarded from the right, public education is seriously underfunded. It is always the isolated cases of overpaid administrators and inflexible teachers` unions that we hear about. In fact, in spite of their dedication, teachers are among the lowest paid of all college educated professionals. In the 10-year period 1982-92, teacher salaries increased a mere 21% while the inflation rate was at least double that amount, and yet only 5% of teachers annually left the profession, mostly to retire or raise children.[vi] Moreover, the primary use of property taxes to fund education means that the school facilities in poorer and middle-income areas are of much lower quality than those in wealthy suburbs. The tax resistance movements spawned by the right make it almost impossible to increase the levels of funding. Thus, to divert money from already financially strapped public schools to private ones will only accentuate these difficulties.

The cost of private school vouchers would obviously be skimmed off the top of public education budgets. This means that public schools, which already are experiencing shortages in funding, would be subjected to further reductions, unless taxpayers agreed to increase revenues to make up the difference, which in today`s political climate is out of the question. Thus, it is inconceivable that such a program of competition for scarce moneys would enable the public schools to improve. Vouchers would have the effect of redistributing existing education dollars to nonpublic schools without any assurance that the quality of education forall children would be enhanced.

Further, the very concept of a healthy rivalry between public and private schools which voucher advocates envision is illusory. The two kinds of schools actually play by different rules. Public schools must adhere to the various federal and state civil rights laws, which forbid discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, and physical disabilities. Many states and localities also have policies regarding curriculum, teacher certification, quality of facilities, and environmental protections to which public schools must adhere. Private schools, especially those which do not receive federal moneys, can choose not to abide by regulations and laws which are designed to meet the common needs of children, parents, the community, and the nation.

If a private school feels that it is too expensive to accommodate handicapped children, it can choose not to admit them. If the school wishes to exclude female students from the sports program, it can do so. If it is a religious school, it can legally discriminate in the employment of teachers and the admission of students who share the faith of the school`s sponsors. Teachers are often paid less that those in public schools (that is particularly the case in religious ones), and this further helps to reduce the costs incurred by nonpublic schools. This unfair framework of competition inevitably will culminate in the creation of a dual school system: a public one which has to meet the common needs of the community regardless of the cost, and a private one which may choose to exempt itself from regulations in order to save money or to accommodate the special interests of its children and parents.

Operating from marketplace theory, one could expect with the implementation of a large-scale voucher plan, not the appearance of thousands of independently-operated schools and marvelous experiments in educational diversity, but, rather, large school franchises where control would be concentrated in the hands of financiers and managers. Vouchers could, in fact, destroy the very educational diversity for which their proponents so fondly hoped. The nature of all marketplaces, and the educational one is no exception, is that profits can only be realized through economies of scale and monopolistic practices.[vii]

Third, a voucher system will further divide our society. One of the more spurious arguments for the idea comes from well-intentioned social activists who claim that private school assistance will help poor and minority children. By enabling them to attend better quality private schools, they are given the opportunity to get on the ladder of success and break out of the cycle of inner-city poverty and misery. However, with some statistically insignificant exceptions, that has proven to be illusory. The Milwaukee voucher experiment is a sterling example of the failure of this policy. Some 40 percent of the students who made the switch to a private school did not return after one year, and the standard test scores of participating students showed little or no improvement in reading and mathematics and remained well below the average in both areas. Also it was found that children were being screened out on the basis of previous school performance. A variety of registration, tuition, and uniform fees had increased the costs to parents above the amount that the vouchers covered, and the private schools taking part in the plan had the option to reject handicapped children.[viii]

In fact, private schools tend to be selective in the students they admit, resulting in a process known as "cream-skimming." This means that they can choose the best and most easily educable children, thus intellectually impoverishing schools in working class neighborhoods by leaving to the public schools the average and below average students and enriching schools in middle and upper class neighborhoods. Private schools may also reject or expel students with discipline and behavioral problems, if they see fit. It is fairly easy to educate white middle-class students from stable families, but it is much more difficult to work with students who are poor, racially diverse, or from broken homes. In other words, "parental choice" is a myth; it is the school, not the parents, that chooses whether to accept a student. Nothing requires admitting a student with low academic potential or a disciplinary record.

Since most nonpublic schools are middle class in their orientation, providing public support for their work will only produce deeper cleavages in our society. As Peter Cookson accurately states: "Private schools attract families that are wealthier than average, are usually quite knowledgeable about their educational options, and have faith in the power of education in the intellectual and status marketplace."[ix] There is a close relationship between private schools and social stratification, and to provide public funding for their operation would contribute to the further fragmentation of our communities and society along religious, ideological, ethnic, and social lines. One need only look at the southern towns where the black and some poor white children attend the public schools while the white middle class children are all enrolled in Christian academies and other nonpublic schools. However, high quality, free, and universal education is a basic right which all Americans have. It is not a property right belonging to only those who possess wealth. Public schools should be improved, not replaced with private ones.

Fourth, a voucher program which includes religious schools violates the constitutional provisions for the separation of church and state. The foundation of American freedom is the principle articulated by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and incorporated into the First Amendment that no law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. No person would, in the words of the Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom authored by Jefferson, "be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever." After becoming president he declared that the First Amendment religious clauses erected a "wall of separation" between church and state, thus meaning government was to remain neutral in religious matters and not involve itself in the affairs of religious groups. All matters of religious practice and propagation were left up to the individual citizens and the institutional structures which they voluntarily created and supported from their own resources and not from tax moneys received from the government. Included among this was the right to educate their children in their respective faiths, if they so wished, and to create schools to carry out that task.

The expenditure of tax money to support these nonpublic, sectarian schools would seriously undermine the heritage of religious freedom. In a voucher plan, the state would of necessity become entangled in religious affairs. Government officials would have to supervise the expenditure of the money given and see to it that the schools conform to regulations governing such outlay of public funds. This includes gathering information on parents, children, and churches to make sure that the money is spent correctly. In effect, the state would be giving its approval to religion because it organizes, promotes, and funds religious education. Church-related schools, in turn, would surrender their autonomy, lose their true sense of uniqueness, and become like public schools. Also, dependence on government support might well cause the atrophy of ability on the part of nonpublic schools to raise money privately, should they ever in the future decide to give up public funding.[x]

Another problem is that the church-related schools discriminate in the admission of students and hiring of teachers. School policies which are set by the sponsoring church or non-profit religious foundation and involve some sort of invidious discrimination by race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or handicap place the government in a difficult constitutional situation. If money is given in the form of vouchers, the state violates its own civil rights laws. On the other hand, if it attempts to police or regulate admissions and hiring policies, it becomes entangled in religious affairs.

It is clear that religiously-based schools, whether Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or other, are pervasively sectarian institutions. Moreover, around 85% of nonpublic schools are religious in nature even if they are supported or sponsored by non-sectarian foundations related to no specific church or denomination. In the great majority of these schools, religion permeates both the philosophy and content of instruction. The First Amendment allows everyone to practice their religious faith as they see fit, even if it is hierarchical, authoritarian, intolerant, close-minded, hostile to diversity, or not in accord with public policy at any given time. No matter how bizarre or idiosyncratic they may be, religious beliefs flourish and are protected by the Constitution. What is wrong, however, is to expect taxpayers through a voucher system to support the teaching of these beliefs. Those who adhere to them are responsible for financing their own religious enterprises.

It is clear that religious bodies have the right to operate private schools, and parents have the right to send their children to them. What is wrong is asking the government to support institutions that are an integral part of a religious body`s mission or using its taxing power to compel involuntary support for religious institutions. To do so would do nothing to advance the cause of better education in America, but, rather, would foster the sort of religious conflict that is tearing at the social fabric of so many countries elsewhere in the world. On every count, school vouchers are a flawed idea and an even worse prescription for the ills of American education.

We should see that public funds are directed toward the free, democratically-managed public schools. Not one dollar appropriated for their support should be channeled to any sectarian school. We must resolve that the state and nation shall support those institutions of learning which give every child growing up in our land the opportunity of a good common school education. Let us leave matters of religion to the family, the church, and the private school, and let them be supported entirely by private contributions. Keep church and state forever separate.

Endnotes
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[i]. July 17, 1996; text of remarks from Americans for Religious Liberty, Silver Spring, Maryland.

[ii]. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990. Other noteworthy works endorsing this idea are Stephen Arons, Compelling Belief: The Culture of American Schooling (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983); Myron Lieberman, Privatization and Educational Choice (New York: St. Martin`s Press, 1989); and John E. Coons and Stephen D. Sugarman, Scholarships for Children (Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies Press, 1992. Major critiques of school choice include Jeffrey R. Henig, Rethinking School Choice: Limits of the Market Metaphor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Peter W. Cookson, Jr., School Choice: The Struggle for the Soul of American Education (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); Kevin B. Smith and Kenneth J. Meier, The Case Against School Choice (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995); and Edd Doerr, Albert J. Menendez, and John M. Swomley, The Case Against School Vouchers (Silver Spring, Md.: Americans for Religious Liberty, 1995. Both sides of the issue are dealt with in Peter W. Cookson, Jr. (Ed.), The Choice Controversy (Newbury Park, Calif.: Corwin Press, 1992); Edith Rasell and Richard Rothstein (Eds.), School Choice: Examining the Evidence (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 1993); and Jerome J. Hanus and Peter W. Cookson, Jr., Choosing Schools: Vouchers and American Education (Washington: American University Press, 1996).

[iii]. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. George Bush, 1992-93 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1993), 1014. He made this statement on June 12, 1992.

[iv]. Hanus and Cookson, Choosing Schools, 118-20.

[v]. Marla E. Sukstorf, Amy Stewart Wells, and Robert L. Crain, A Re-examination of Church and Moe`s Politics, Markets, and America`s Schools, in Rasell and Rothstein, School Choice, 217-18.

[vi]. National Center for Education Statistics, The Condition of Education 1995 (Washington: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1995), 158, 164.

[vii]. Ibid., 138.

[viii]. Doerr, et. al., Case Against School Vouchers, 47-48, citing reports from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the 1992 Carnegie Foundation study, School Choice.

[ix]. Hanus and Cookson, Choosing Schools, 152.

[x]. Doerr, et. al., Case Against School Vouchers, 6.

Updated Tuesday, June 12, 2001